Diagnosis: You're Screwed
by LaurelNymph
Summary: AU: Matthew Williams was living a normal life practicing obstetrics in a small city when one self-proclaimed "awesome" patient comes bursting into his life and turns it upside down. Genderbent: fem!Prussia/Canada. Minor pairings included. Now complete!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N This story will deal with a few sensitive subjects, teen pregnancy, large age gaps in relationships, and adults in relationship with minors among them, so please be aware of that. Nothing I write is meant to offend so I apologize in advance if anything upsets you. Hopefully, it shan't.**

**The idea for this fic is a little weird, but hopefully it'll be enjoyable anyway.  
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**Please enjoy and review!**

**EDIT: Minor pairings include: Spain/Romano, France/England, Germany/Italy, Lithuania/Poland, and Russia/America.  
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When Matthew Williams had moved to a town called Circle Valley to start practicing obstetrics, he had anticipated a quiet, normal life. With such a quaint name and scenery, he had expected his job to be fairly regular. Even after his brother had moved to the same town and started his residency in the same hospital, he had expected that his life would continue in a normal vein. Matthew would have never guessed that after only six months in town, his life would change forever, and all because of an appointment with a brash teenager. One brash teenager who was sitting at his desk and currently bouncing in his chair. His favorite, custom-built, very expensive chair.

The girl's long, white hair was one of the first things he noticed about her, the second being that she was rifling through the papers on his desk. Matthew's eyebrow twitched in annoyance at the breach of personal space and privacy; he cleared his throat loudly and the girl looked up and finally stopped bouncing.

"Uh, Miss–" He checked her chart. "Miss Beilschmidt?"

"Yeah?" she answered, changing from bouncing to spinning in the chair. Matthew fought back another wave of exasperation.

"Would you get off of my chair?"

"Hey, I'm the pregnant one here, I think I deserve the nicer chair," the teenager argued, coming to a halt and sitting still. Matthew suppressed a groan of vexation and decided to just get this appointment over with the annoying girl out of his office as quickly as possible. He flipped to the last page of her charts, drew up a stool in front of her, and sat down. With his pen poised to takes notes, he started asking the routine questions.

"How are you feeling today, Miss Beilschmidt?"

"Like crap," she answered. "I've been puking all morning."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Matthew said, starting to feel a little bad for the girl, despite his irritation with her. Getting the flu was bad enough. He couldn't imagine what several months of nausea felt like. "Try eating crackers and Jell-O. That tends to help my other patients."

She nodded.

"So tell me," he continued, "How old are you?"

"Seventeen. Almost eighteen."

He scribbled the answer, a little surprised, but kept his face blank.

"And how long have you been sexually active?"

The girl paused, counted on her fingers, and then answered:

"Two-ish years."

"Okay. How long has it been since you've engaged in sexual intercourse?"

"These questions are creepy. You're not some kind of pedo, are you, Doc?"

Matthew could feel his eyebrow twitching again. She noticed, and begrudgingly answered.

"A month ago."

"Have you been using contraceptives?"

"Yeah, but the cheap bastard I was with always bought really shitty condoms."

"I see," Matthew noted. "And you're certain that you're pregnant?"

"Yup. I haven't had my period in two months and I took five of those pee-stick tests and they all came out positive."

"Okay," Matthew muttered as he scribbled down notes. "Those are all pretty good indicators that you are pregnant, probably somewhere between ten and twelve weeks along. Still, we should run a few tests to be absolutely certain–"

"I'm pretty damn sure," the teenager butted in annoyingly. Matthew's grip tightened on his pen before he took a deep breath and decided to ignore her.

"And after that, we need to start prenatal care: vitamins, for one thing, and we need to run an ultra–"

"Stop right there," the girl interrupted him again. "I don't want any of that."

Matthew looked up from his notes in surprise.

"Miss Beilschmidt," he started, concern for the baby overshadowing his exasperation with the girl. "Prenatal care is very important. It's been proven to limit consequences such as–"

"Just call me Gil. 'Miss Beilschmidt' makes me feel old and that's not awesome."

"All right then, _Gil_," Matthew ground out, sick of the constant interruptions. "Prenatal care is vital for your baby's health. Why wouldn't you want that?"

Gil looked away from him and bit her lip.

"I'm not interesting in having the thing. I want an abortion."

Matthew set down his clipboard and pen on his desk and frowned.

"Miss Beilschmidt, I'm an obstetrician. That means my job is to help women _maintain_ their pregnancies, not terminate them."

"I know that," Gil said, rolling her eyes. "But since you know what keeps the thing alive, then doesn't that mean you know how to get rid of it, too?"

"No, it doesn't!" Matthew snapped. "And even if I did, abortion is illegal in this state! I wouldn't do it!"

A tense pause followed before Matthew took another deep breath to clear out the lingering anger from Gil's request.

"Why don't you just put the child up for adoption?" he asked, trying his hardest to be gentle.

"I can't," Gil said quietly. "If my grandpa ever found out that I'm pregnant he'd get a wire hanger and take care the thing himself. Probably kill me, too, while he's at it." Abruptly, she stood up from Matthew's chair. "But whatever. You're not the only doctor in town. I'll find someone. Thanks for nothing."

And with that she stormed out of the office before Matthew could stop her.

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Matthew was still thinking about Gil even after he had seen all of his patients and gone home. Sitting on the couch with a bowl of ramen, he couldn't help but feel a growing concern about the girl. Her conviction that her grandfather would attempt an illegal abortion on her was upsetting. It made him worry that she might actually go to some other illegal practitioner of abortions and permanently injure herself. He was fairly certain that none of the other doctors in the community would be willing to do an abortion. Some back-alley butcher would be her only choice.

Sighing, he rinsed out his empty bowl and settled back on his couch for a House marathon. Around eleven o' clock, someone knocked on his door. Puzzled, Matthew got up to answer the door. Had he forgotten that Alfred was coming over? He went to go open the door, expecting his brother.

"Al, if you've come here to complain about Dr. Braginsky _again_ I…"

His words trailed off when he recognized the girl standing in his doorway with two suitcases and a duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

"'Sup, Doc?"

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***Obstetrics: the branch of medicine dealing with prenatal care and childbirth.**

***Gilberte is genderbent Prussia's full name. It means almost the same thing as Gilbert, which is why I went with it. I'm pronouncing it as "Gihl-behrt". She doesn't like her name and so goes by Gil or Gilly. **

***The father of the baby is a Hetalia character, but he won't be revealed for a while.**

***House is an amazing medical show on the Fox channel.**

***There might be a few other genderbent characters, but I have yet to decide whether there will be any others besides Prussia.**

***I've never been pregnant, so my knowledge on this whole subject is somewhat limited. If I make a mistake, please point it out. **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Please enjoy and review!**

**EDIT: I forgot to mention, I got the idea for the name of the city, Circle Valley, from another AU fanfic where the high school the characters attended was called Circle High. If you like RussiaxAmerica, you might like that fic. It's called "The Chemistry of Physics" and I would recommend it.  
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Matthew stood frozen in disbelief in the doorway. He gaped at the teenage girl who had once again popped up before him.

"Sup, Doc?" she said calmly, as if there was nothing strange about showing up at his apartment in the middle of the night with her things. Matthew's brain was short-circuiting and he found himself incapable of doing anything but splutter incoherently.

"What– How– Why–"

Dozens of questions were buzzing around his head but he couldn't pick just one to ask. As he struggled to form words, Gil took full advantage of his stupefaction to squeeze past him and set her things down on the floor of his apartment. The resounding clunk from her duffel bag hitting the floor finally jolted Matthew into action.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here!" he finally cried out as he jerked around to look at Gil, the action causing the door to slam shut. "How did you even find me?"

Gil reached silently into the messenger bag slung on her shoulder and took out a magazine, which she handed to him. It was the latest issue from his subscription to The Scientific American. And it had a large sticker bearing his name and address on the cover which Matthew had forgotten to take off before bringing it to his office. A large sticker that could have been easily seen by anyone who would happen to look at his desk.

"You went through my mail," he stated, barely suppressing his anger at having his things looked through.

"I was bored!" Gil whined in her defense. "I was waiting in your office for, like, twenty minutes before you showed up! So not awesome, Doc!"

"You were bored so to entertain yourself you _stole_ my mail?" Matthew exclaimed incredulously. "You know that's illegal, right?"

"It's not stealing if you bring it back," Gil insisted. "And I thought it was only illegal to open someone else's mail!"

Matthew was tempted to continue arguing with Gil, but decided that it would be pointless. Gil seemed to be the type of person who would stubbornly argue until the cows came home. He sighed in frustration and passed a hand over his face. Why did this have to happen to him?

"And as for why I'm here," Gil said as she stripped off her coat and scarf and then tossed them on the couch. Matthew could feel his eye twitching in irritation. "I can't go home. If I do, my grandpa will murder me. And since I don't really feel like dying, and it's your fault I can't go home anyway, I think it's only fair that you let me stay here. You know, since you've ruined my life and all."

"How is any of this _my_ fault?" Matthew questioned through clenched teeth.

"Because you wouldn't give me an abortion!" Gil answered forcefully, throwing in a spiteful glare at Matthew, who ignored it completely.

"I'm not the only doctor who wouldn't."

"Yeah, but of all the doctors I saw you seemed like the one mostly likely to cave," Gil responded calmly. Matthew stared open-mouthed at her again. Anger bubbled up in his stomach at Gil's casual assertion that he would submit to any demand she made but he forced it down. It wouldn't do him any good to get upset with this girl. The best solution was to just get her back where she belonged and out of his hair. However upset her family would be, she would probably be fine. He took a calming breath before picking up his car keys and opening the front door again.

"Where do you live?" he asked. "C'mon, I'll drive you home."

Gil vehemently shook her head and planted herself on his couch, gripping the seat cushions tightly.

"I can't go home," she repeated, although there was a slight undertone of fright in her voice that Matthew couldn't help but worry about.

"You can't stay here, either," he insisted firmly. "Do you have a friend you could stay with?"

Gil shook her head again.

"My grandpa'll look for me at my friends' houses." There was a note of desperation in her voice that was starting to make itself noticeable. Matthew ignored it and racked his brain for another solution.

"Why don't you ask the father for help?" Matthew suggested, gesturing vaguely toward Gil's abdomen. She stiffened.

"I want absolutely _nothing_ to do with my prick of an ex-boyfriend," she growled with a ferocity that made Matthew cringe. She let out a loud sniff before she turned around and her shoulders began to shake. Matthew's blood ran cold. If there was one thing he could not handle, it was women crying.

"I have nowhere else to go!" Gil wailed through sobs. "I don't have any other family who'll take me in and my grandpa'll track me down if I stay with my friends!" Hiccups began to punctuate her words as she sobbed harder. "You're the only person who can help me!" Gil's words were then drowned out by her tears. Without his consent, Matthew's mouth opened.

"I suppose you could stay the night and figure out somewhere to go tomorrow," he heard himself say. Gil turned around grinning gleefully and Matthew was shocked to see that her face was clear of tears.

"Really? Thanks, Doc!" she called out cheerfully before cackling and running across his apartment to his bedroom and slamming the door behind her. The click of the lock sounded and Matthew stood frozen in his doorway for the second time that night.

"Goddammit."

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Still angry with himself for falling for Gil's trick, Matthew collapsed onto his couch. After mourning the loss of his peace of mind, he got up and hung up Gil's coat and scarf before getting a blanket and settling to sleep on the couch. Hours later, Matthew was awoken when the door to his to bedroom flew open–slamming against the wall–and Gil came barreling out. He sat up groggily as she tore past him into his bathroom and gagging noises followed.

Matthew sighed. There went his hope that this was all some dream. He got a glass of water from the kitchen and took it into the bathroom where Gil was slumped miserably over the toilet as she retched. Pity welling up in him, Matthew knelt down next to Gil and pulled her hair back revealing her arms and shoulders. His eyes widened at the familiar pattern of striped bruises on her upper left arm the tank top she had slept in revealed. He'd seen those types of bruises many times in the E.R., usually accompanied by policemen.

He waited until she had drunk the water before he asked about them.

"Did your grandfather do that to you?"

She flushed when she realized that he had seen the bruises and clapped a hand over her arm. But her slender fingers couldn't cover up the hand print-shaped bruise.

"I wasn't lying when I said my grandpa's the type of man who'd take a coat hanger to me," she snapped, shooting him a furious look for having not believed her.

Gil's actions quite suddenly made a lot more sense to Matthew. If her grandfather was strict and overbearing to the point where he became abusive, revealing a pregnancy could be very dangerous. A strict man like that could possibly even seriously injure his underage granddaughter if she told him that she was expecting a child out of wedlock. It explained her desire for an abortion and her desperation to not return home under any circumstances.

Matthew suddenly felt a lot more sympathy for Gil. She was dealing with such a huge problem without a single person to help her, not even the man who'd gotten her into this situation. As irritating as Gil could be, nobody deserved to have to deal with a pregnancy alone. It was that fact that suddenly made Matthew want to help her as best as he could.

"If he really did that to you," he said, gesturing toward the hand print-shaped bruise, "then it would be medically irresponsible of me to send you home."

Gil looked up at him in surprise.

"I suppose you can stay here just a little longer," Matthew continued. "At least until you figure out somewhere else to go."

A bright smile overtook Gil's face.

"I knew you'd be the one who'd cave," she said gleefully. Seeing the look on Matthew's face, she sighed and dropped the grin.

"I mean, thank you," she ground out, as if she was unused to thanking people.

Unsure of how to respond to her strange behavior, and still feeling insulted, Matthew decided to simple say, "You're welcome."

"But don't think you can just lounge around here and not do anything productive!" he warned, determined to make sure that Gil knew that he wasn't some pansy who would let her take over his apartment and do whatever she wanted. "If you're going to be staying here, then we need to lay down some ground rules. First off, I expect you to help out with chores. You're going to keep up with school, too, and get at least a C average. And you're going to have a curfew. An early one."

Matthew felt a smug joy at the look of horror on Gil's face. She gaped hopelessly for a few seconds before glaring at him.

"I'm only agreeing to those unawesome rules because I'm desperate," Gil announced heatedly.

"Duly noted," Matthew said calmly before getting up off of the floor and helping Gil up, too.

He had no idea what he was getting himself into.

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*******The Scientific American**** is a medical magazine that is published monthly.**

_**SUPER IMPORTANT INFO:**_

**I am part of a project to produce a Hetalia fanbook! You can find more info with the link below, but it is basically a Christmas-themed fanbook with eleven featured characters, each of which has fanart/fanfiction for a Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Plenty of fantastic writers and artists are a part of this project and the fanbook is going to be great, so check it out! **

**http:/ christmasfanbook. wordpress. com/ 2010/ 10/ 15/ its-aliveeeee/**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N PLEASE READ!**

**I was having some problems with the progression of this fic. I accidentally left out important details and I just wasn't overall pleased with how things were developing. I changed up my outline and am in the process of rewriting the last few chapters, hence the reposting. Sorry about that.**

**This chapter contains a lot of the themes and details from the first version of chapter three, but I added a lot and rewrote it almost completely, so please read the new version. Chapter four will be entirely new material, and chapter five will contain a lot of the details from the old chapter four but partially rewritten, and then we'll be back on track. I'm sorry for any confusion.**

**I'd also like to apologize for accidentally giving out some wrong information. I know I told a few people that the father of Gil's child would be revealed in chapter six. After rearranging everything, this will actually happen in chapter eight. **

**I hope you enjoy this chapter and please review. :)**

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Matthew hadn't felt right about living with a patient. It seemed like a breach of privacy, not to mention the fact that Gil might feel awkward about living with her doctor. This was why he had scheduled her first prenatal appointment with an OBGYN friend of his and why he was sitting in a waiting room now, trying to read the book he'd brought with him, but finding it hard to focus when he was still completely flummoxed as to how the hell he had ended up in this situation to begin with.

When he'd agreed to let Gil stay with him just a little longer, he had really only meant an extra night, _maybe_ two at the most while she figured out what to do with herself. He certainly hadn't expected for one day to turn into two, then three, then a week, and then somehow two weeks of living with Gil had passed. It was at that two-week point that Matthew had finally been forced to admit to himself that Gil wasn't going anywhere. She had been quick to inform him that she had no family aside from her grandfather and younger brother and she adamantly refused to get help from the father of the child, so she really had nowhere else to go. His moment of generosity had gotten him stuck.

Oddly enough, he found that he didn't mind all that much. Considering the circumstances that had led to her living with him, Gil was a surprisingly decent roommate. Though she often tried to argue around the rules he had set out for her, in addition to a few more that had come to him later, or complain about them, she did follow them. Her 18th birthday had come a few days after she'd barged into his home, so any worries Matthew had had about the legality of their living situation had been taken care of. After a few awkward days, the two had managed to work their schedules out and hammer out a new pattern to their daily routines. Matthew dropped Gil off at school, went to work, and returned home, where she would already be. He supposed he should have been worried about how quickly he was adjusting to having the teenager in his life, but tried not to think too much about it.

After quite some time spent in the waiting room, Matthew was jarred from his reading when he heard the receptionist call his name.

"Dr. Wang would like to see you," she informed him when his attention was caught. Matthew crossed the waiting room and walked into the hallway leading to the examination rooms where his old friend was waiting.

"Hello, Matthew," Yao greeted him tiredly.

"Hey, Yao," he replied, and then became aware that Gil was conspicuously absent. A slight amount of concern trickled through his consciousness that something was wrong with Gil or the fetus. "Is everything all right with Gil?"

"Miss Beilschmidt is fine," Yao answered and Matthew found himself nearly sighing in relief. "Aside from somewhat poor nutrition, she is very healthy. Her pregnancy seems to be progressing normally. No history of diseases in her family, though it's unfortunate she is unaware of any possible diseases on the father's side."

The last comment was accompanied by a serious look that Matthew couldn't quite decipher. He wasn't sure how exactly to respond to it and settled on, "I see."

Matthew felt an odd sense of foreboding at his friend's hesitation and shuffled uncomfortably. Yao cleared his throat awkwardly before he spoke again.

"I don't mean to pry," he began slowly, "but what exactly is your relationship with Miss Beilschmidt?"

Horror and embarrassment flooded Matthew as he processed the question and suddenly understood all too well the pointed look Yao had shot at him moments ago. Yao thought they were a couple. He thought Matthew had fathered Gil's child. There was a part of him that was hurt that one of his close friends honestly thought that he was perverse enough to take advantage of a teenager, but it was dwarfed by the shock of the implied relationship. The very idea stalled Matthew's brain, caught on the sheer impossibility of _him_ involved romantically with _Gil_. The thought hadn't even once crossed his mind. It was unthinkable.

"No!" he finally managed to choke out through the shock. "_No_. Gil's just a friend. It's nothing like that _at all_."

Yao hardly looked convinced.

"You're my friend, Matthew. I would hate to see you get in any legal trouble," the older doctor said quietly. Matthew shook his head firmly, still flushed.

"Really, she's only a friend," he insisted, with as much conviction as he could muster. Yao looked as if he were going to continue, but before he could Gil exited one of the hallway doors and bounded over to them.

"I'm done," she announced.

"All right," Yao said, wiping the concern from his face and slipping back into the role of doctor. "You can schedule an appointment with the receptionist on your way out, in four weeks. Remember to eat healthy and call if you have any questions. Have a nice day."

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They left the OBGYN's office, Gil chattering glibly and Matthew still caught up thinking about what Yao had said. It wasn't until Gil started poking him and yelled in his ear that he snapped out of it.

"_Hey, Doc!_"

"What!" Matthew shouted in surprise, jumping when he realized she was leaning close to his face and poking him sharply. "Hey, stop that!"

Annoyed with the repeated pokes in his shoulder, he didn't even register that she'd had used that god-awful nickname again. Gil merely shrugged at his outburst, but pulled away and stopped poking him.

"You looked pretty out of it," she offered as an excuse. Matthew couldn't argue with that. He'd been so distracted it was only now that he realized they were a few rows away from where he'd parked his car. Even after they were sitting in the car, he must have still looked odd, because Gil, looking almost concerned, asked him, "You okay?"

"Yeah, fine," Matthew muttered. He shook himself mentally; Yao had certainly made an unsettling comment, but it was only natural to be concerned about a friend when his circumstances looked pretty suspicious. It wasn't really anything to keep worrying about or let affect him so badly. So he pushed the incident to the back of his mind and instead asked Gil how her appointment had gone. Yao's words were completely forgotten as Gil recounted her appointment with a little too much detail.

"The whole thing took forever!" she concluded. "And now I'm craving tacos. Can we go to Chipotle?"

Only slightly unsettled by how quickly and masterfully Gil could change topics, Matthew agreed. Twenty minutes later, they were seated in the Mexican fast-food chain and Matthew cringed as, once again, Gil called him "Doc". She hadn't called him anything else for the last two weeks and Matthew was really getting tired of it. The nickname brought to mind images of Elmer Fudd, West Side Story, and dwarfs. It made him feel old and rather unattractive. He didn't think he could handle hearing it for however long Gil was staying (and he suspected it would be quite some time) so he finally spoke up about it.

"Please don't call me 'Doc'," he said to Gil, once she had paused for breath in the middle of an anecdote. "It makes me feel old."

She cocked her head to the side.

"Well, you are old, right?" she said casually and Matthew cringed. "I mean, you're, like, thirty-something, aren't you?"

"I'm twenty-eight," he ground out, both annoyed and internally dismayed. He didn't look _that_ old, did he?

"You look older," Gil informed him. Feeling slightly insulted, Matthew decided to not respond to that statement and silence fell between them.

"Sooo," Gil finally spoke up after a few moments of silence. "If I can't call you Doc what can I call you?"

"'Matt' is fine," he declared.

"Okay, Matt," Gil said, flashing a grin at him that made it impossible to stay mad at her for long. "But why does being called Doc make you feel old?"

Matthew tried to explain his reasoning behind disliking the nickname, but the age gap between them became woefully apparent, as Gil had no idea about any of the movies and characters he was trying to talk about. Granted, all of the references he knew were still fairly ancient, even for him, but it didn't help the feeling that he was getting older. But while he could excuse Gil not knowing Looney Tunes or West Side Story (as those were popular in the 60's, long before either of them was born), he couldn't contain his disbelief that Gil had never once seen Snow White. Matthew gaped wordlessly at her before he could regain the power of speech.

"How could you have _not_ watched Snow White? It's a Disney classic!" he exclaimed. Gil frowned and Matthew could almost see her mood drop.

"My grandpa never let Ludwig and me watch kids' movies. He said they were too 'frivolous'," she explained with a note of bitterness in her voice. That note was usually there the rare times Gil mentioned her grandfather. All of the negative bits of information Matthew had managed to glean about Gil's grandfather painted an unfortunate picture. He truly empathized with her. Her grandfather sounded like a very strict, difficult man to live with. But before he could comment on it, Gil rapidly changed the subject again and Matthew grudgingly let the topic drop.

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***OBGYN is the abbreviation for Obstetrics and Gynecology.**

***Elmer Fudd is the name of the rabbit hunter on Looney Tunes who's always trying to catch Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny's catchphrase is "What's up, doc?" It was first created in the 30's, but was most popular on TV during the 50's/60's.**

***The musical West Side Story has a character of an older man, nicknamed Doc, who tries to harbor peace between the rival gangs (the equivalent of Friar Lawrence). The movie was released in 1961.**

***In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released in 1937, one of the dwarfs is named Doc. **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I'm so sorry about the wait. This is the second version of Chapter Four, and the first part contains material that was already in the previous versions of chapters, but in a different order than it had been previously. The second part of the this chapter it entirely new. This chapter and the next one are the only ones left to be rewritten, then the fic will (finally) start progressing. **

**Also, I have realized since beginning this story that it was heavily influenced by a Bleach fanfic I read. My plot is similar in one specific event to Princess Kitty1's Ulquihime fic "Muse". I would hate to not give credit where it is due, and credit for part of my plot belongs to Princess Kitty1. I would recommend "Muse" to any Ulquihime fans. It's extremely good.**

**I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please read and review. :)**

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Even though Gil had clearly forgotten all about the movie by the time they got home that night, Matthew couldn't forget that she had never seen Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. To a person who'd grown up owning every Disney movie as a kid, it was disturbing to find someone who had never watched a single one. It was for that reason that when the next weekend rolled around, Matthew decided to pay a short visit to his brother, who owned every special edition of every Disney movie to borrow his copy of Snow White. Or at least Matthew had _intended_ for it to be a short visit.

But Alfred being Alfred, hadn't let Matthew go, talking a mile a minute about every possible topic under the sun: the new edition of the Pokémon game he'd bought, how much he hated being an intern under Ivan Braginsky, the new McDonald's opening closer to his apartment, the newest horror movie he had rented but had been too scared to watch yet, how much he hated being an intern under Ivan Braginsky, the latest episode of Hannah Montana (Matthew didn't even want to know why his twenty-five-year-old brother watched that show), how much he hated being an intern under Ivan Braginsky, and the new Call of Duty game he had been playing. And then for a change of pace he talked about how much he hated being an intern under Ivan Braginsky. Of course, Matthew had stopped really listening to anything his brother said about Dr. Braginsky. He was convinced that his brother insisted he hated the man so much only because he was trying to deny to himself that he actually liked the Russian surgeon.

With the sheer volume of prattle Alfred managed to put his brother through, nearly three hours had passed by the time that Matthew finally got the Blu-ray disc from him. It was a relief to get back to his apartment where he could finally escape Alfred's endless chatter. He entered his apartment, surprised to see that Gil _wasn't_ lounging on his couch and watching TV as she so often was when he came home. Instead, he found her in his home office (which had been temporarily transformed into her bedroom), sitting in front of his desk with her knees drawn up to her chest, staring at his laptop with a frown. He peered over her shoulder, curious to see what she was doing.

She was on the internet, looking at what appeared to be an adoption website. The page was pastel pink and blue with clip art of booties and rattles framing pictures of smiling couples pasted in every spare pixel. The families all looked wholesome and happy, though Gil was eyeing the screen in suspicion. Still, Matthew felt a great deal of relief that Gil had apparently given up on the idea of getting an abortion.

"Are you thinking about adoption?" he asked hopefully.

"Not anymore," Gil responded, clicking the exit button on the internet browser violently. The page of smiling families disappeared along with Matthew's short-lived sense of relief.

"Why not?" he questioned with a frown.

"Those families are fucking _creepy_," Gil accused, jabbing a finger at the computer screen. "They're too perfect!"

"What's wrong with them?" Matthew asked.

"According to them, nothing! They all paint this beautiful picture like they're fucking saints for taking your accident off of your hands and they list weirdass hobbies like croquet and chess and _water skiing_ and say creepy shit that doesn't make any sense. This one guy put on his profile that his worst quality is that he '_tries too hard'_. What the fuck does that even mean?" Gil fumed, sending another glare toward the computer, even though the adoption page had already been closed.

Matthew hadn't known Gil for very long, but it was still plain that looking at the adoption pages had stressed her out. The glare on her face seemed almost forced somehow; it wasn't difficult to imagine that underneath the angry front she had put up she must be scared and upset by the magnitude of the choice she had been considering. It was unnerving to see that kind of uncertainty from somebody as tough as Gil had proven to be in the last few weeks. In an attempt to comfort her, Matthew shut the laptop gently.

"You don't have to make any decisions right away," he assured Gil. "You still have plenty of time." She didn't answer him.

So he decided to do the one thing he knew would cheer anybody up: he made pancakes for dinner.

When he started pouring the batter on the griddle, the smell of the pancakes cooking lured Gil out from her gloom in the office to the kitchen. She sat in silence at the table, watching him cook. When the pancakes were ready he set them down in front of her along with the maple syrup, then joined her at the table. Matthew picked up the syrup and poured it liberally on his pancakes before setting it back down on the table, closer to Gil. She eyed the maple leaf-shaped bottle suspiciously.

"Something wrong?" Matthew asked when he realized that Gil wasn't eating and was instead appeared to be having a staring contest with the bottle of syrup.

"I've never eaten real maple syrup before," she muttered. Matthew gaped at her in horror.

"Try it," he ordered in a rare moment of assertiveness. "Maple syrup surely brings happiness to the people who eat it."

Gil looked like she didn't believe him, but uncapped the bottle and poured the sticky, amber liquid on her pancakes anyway. Tentatively, she took a bite. Matthew waited for her reaction. There were a few seconds of silence. And then–

"Oh my God, this is fucking delicious."

Those were the last few words Matthew heard from Gil for a while. She was too busy shoveling pancakes into her mouth at an impossible speed for any conversation during dinner which didn't bother Matthew at all. He was slightly concerned that she might choke, but shrugged it off. He knew the Heimlich Maneuver. So instead of worrying, he just paid more attention to his own pancakes, which were as tasty as ever. But when the meal was over, she still seemed a little despondent, so Matthew popped in the movie he'd borrowed in hopes of distracting Gil from what was upsetting her.

"We're watching this," he announced to Gil, who had lied down on the couch with several Hostess Cupcakes smeared with peanut butter.

"W'a ith it?" Gil garbled unintelligibly through a mouthful of peanut butter and chocolate. After a lifetime of translating whatever Alfred said though a mouthful of hamburgers, Matthew was easily able to understand what she had just said.

"It's Snow White," he answered as he slipped the disk in his Blu-ray player. Gil made a noise that sounding like she was trying to whine about Matthew's choice of movies but he ignored her.

"Scoot over," he said, gesturing to Gil to make room for him on the couch. Glaring, she moved her legs for a minute, then plopped them back down on Matthew's lap once he had sat down. She wasn't very heavy, so Matthew let her lie on him and started the movie. At first she complained about how "lame" the movie was, but Matthew was pleased to see that after a while Gil got into the movie, shouting colorful comments at the characters. She even sat up and moved off of his legs, something that Matthew was extremely grateful for (they'd started to fall asleep).

"_No, don't eat the apple you dumbass!_" she shouted at the screen as Snow White took a bite of the poison apple the disguised Queen had just offered. The cartoon princess fell over in a faint as the evil Queen cackled with glee.

"Snow White's friggin' stupid!" she exclaimed to Matthew. "Why the hell would she trust that old bitch when she's _clearly_ evil? Even her nose looks like it would murder a puppy!"

Matthew laughed at Gil's ridiculous comments. He enjoyed her company a surprising amount and liked Gil despite their bad first impressions of each other. It was nice to have a friend in the house rather than living alone. He found himself minding less and less that she was probably going to be here for a long time.

* * *

In the end, it was borrowing Snow White that screwed Matthew over. Because he forgot to give it back, and Alfred, being Alfred, saw no problem in dropping by unannounced to retrieve it. Matthew was cleaning up in the kitchen when it happened; he heard the door open and Gil say, "Who are you?" followed by a shriek. The plate in his hands fell back into the sink and he ran into the living room, afraid of what had caused the shriek. He turned the corner to see Gil and Alfred, staring at each other awkwardly.

"Matt!" Alfred wailed and threw his arms around Matthew, almost knocking him over. "_How could you?_"

He looked over at Gil for an explanation for the outburst. She merely shrugged.

"How could I what?" Matthew asked, already dreading hearing whatever crazy idea had upset his brother so badly. Alfred pointed angrily at Gil.

"First, you don't tell me your girlfriend moved in and then you didn't bother to tell me you made me a nephew! I didn't even know you had a girlfriend!" he wailed. Matthew's palm would have crashed straight into his forehead if Alfred hadn't been pinning his arms to his sides. Not this again.

"Alfred," he tried to interrupt.

"Does Mom know about this? She's gonna be pissed you didn't tell her, you know that, right?"

"Alfred."

"She looks pretty damn young, too. Never pegged you for a cradle robber, man. When did this happen?"

"_ALFRED!_"

He jumped in terror at his brother raising his voice.

"Gil is not my girlfriend," Matthew said firmly. To his surprise, Alfred looked even more distressed.

"You mean you got _married_ without telling anyone? That's even worse!"

"No!" Matthew tried to take a few calming breaths before continuing. "Al. Listen to me. Gil is _not_ my wife, and she is _not_ my girlfriend, and she never has been. We are _just friends_." He made sure to state the last part slowly, so that there was no possibility of Alfred misunderstanding again. And because Alfred had opened his mouth again, Matthew added, "And I am not the father."

"Oh," Alfred said, sounding disappointed. "Too bad. I wanna be an uncle."

"Don't you start with that, too," Matthew muttered.

"Sorry, sorry," Alfred said, holding his hands up. "So why is she here?"

After telling his brother a somewhat abridged version of how Gil ended up living with him, Alfred took his Blu-ray disc back and Matthew noticed that Gil had disappeared during their conversation. He found her in his room, standing sideways in front of his mirrored closet doors in nothing but her underwear. There were a few seconds where Matthew was frozen in shock and couldn't look away from her, the black lacy undergarments doing very little to hide her pale skin from view. He quickly snapped out of it and turned away from her, feeling his face heat up in embarrassment.

"I'm showing," Gil wailed.

* * *

***I went to an adoption website to see what they look like. The wording on some couple's profiles can be a bit unsettling.**

***Canada's line about maple syrup is taken directly from the Ore-sama no Blog, found here:**

** spazzy .starry -sky oresamanosite /t .html**

***In case it wasn't clear, Russia is a surgeon and America's completing his residency under him with three other interns.**

**By the way, I am in no way trying to make any political statements with this story.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N This chapter is mostly the pieces from the other chapters when I rewrote them. There is not much new material. I hope you enjoy anyway. The next chapter (which hopefully won't take nearly as long to put out) will continue the storyline.**

* * *

In the month since Gil had moved in with him, Matthew had gotten used to coming home from work to strange sights. Gil was a rather odd girl and it wasn't entirely unusual to walk in on her eating or making bizarre concoctions or watching the History Channel (which she always changed quickly afterward to MTV, claiming she had just been channel surfing) and one time, Matthew had walked into his apartment to see Gil lying on the floor with an army of plastic soldiers, apparently recreating a battle. (She had quickly insisted that she was reviewing her plan for world conquest, even though Matthew had clearly heard her ordering around troops and referencing General von Steuben.)

It still was quite a shock for Matthew to see Gil standing almost naked in his bedroom.

"I'm showing," she wailed again. "It's so obvious now everyone can tell! Crap!"

Matthew threw a quick peek over his shoulder to glance at her stomach (and nothing else). There was more than just the pudge of extra baby weight on her now; her stomach was starting to take on the defined curve of pregnancy. It was becoming pretty obvious. It didn't surprise him at all that Alfred had been able to tell.

"A little," he agreed. Gil groaned miserably.

"This fucking sucks!" she growled. "Once I figure out how to do it without getting caught, I'm gonna murder that bastard!"

The last part was muttered quietly and Matthew decided to pretend he just hadn't heard it and retreated to his office. Even though Gil slept there now, he had kept his work things in there still and it had remained his office. Matthew booted up his laptop and eventually, Gil trailed in, thankfully wearing clothes, and flopped down on her bed. Besides the crunching sound from whatever snack Gil was eating, it was quiet. But like all of the quiet moments in Matthew's new life with Gil, it didn't last long.

"Yo, Matt! Who's that?"

Matthew looked up from his laptop over to Gil, who was eating potato chips dipped in mustard and looking through an old photo album that he didn't remember giving her permission to look through. Gil was holding out the book to him and pointing at a picture of a smiling, platinum blonde woman. He tensed at the sight of the familiar photograph.

"Where did you get that?" Matthew demanded sharply, reaching out to snatch the book back from Gil.

"Found it in your closet," Gil replied calmly, evading him and holding the album just out of reach.

"But don't worry," she added when she saw the angry scowl on his face. "I didn't find anything good. Yet. I'm still looking for your porn stash."

Matthew felt heat rush to his face in an unmistakable blush. He swept his hand upward to cover the awkward color rising in his face.

"_Why_?" he cried out, exasperated.

"I'm testing a theory," Gil replied seriously. Matthew was tempted to ask her what theory she was talking about, but decided against it. It would probably be better for his health _not_ to ask. The answer was most likely so convoluted he'd give himself an aneurism trying to follow it.

"So who is she? Cousin? Aunt?" Gil asked eagerly, her mission to discover the mystery woman's identity not forgotten.

"Ex-girlfriend," Matthew answered tersely. Gil's eyes bugged out comically. Matthew might've laughed if he hadn't been so irritated with her for rifling through his things. Again.

"_Seriously?_" Gil asked, gaping at the busty woman in the photograph. "You tapped that? No way!"

Matthew didn't bother answering; he could hear the sound of the pages flipping rapidly as she looked through the photo album and he knew Gil would find the answer on her own. He was familiar enough with those pictures to know there were ones of Katyusha and him together in the next few pages. Too distracted to work but preferring not to look at the old pictures and be reminded of her, he turned back to his laptop. Matthew had completely forgotten that he even had the album; he hadn't noticed it when he was unpacking after he had first moved to Circle Valley.

"All right! This proves it!" Gil announced loudly, slamming the album shut and getting Matthew's attention.

"Proves what?" he asked, regretting the question as soon as it came out of his mouth.

"That you're gay," Gil said, pointing at his chest. Matthew blinked, slowly. Was it sad that in one month he had gotten so used to her strange outbursts that it wasn't the accusation itself that fazed him but the lack of discernible logic behind it?

"You find pictures of one of my old girlfriends and automatically assume that I'm gay?" Matthew questioned, trying to understand her logic and failing.

"It's okay, you can be honest with me," Gil assured him. "My little brother's gay, too! And so're my pals Francis and Antonio! I'm cool with it!"

"I'm not gay," he told her firmly. She placed a hand on his shoulder condescendingly.

"You keep pictures in a photo album," Gil stated slowly as if Matthew weren't aware of the fact. "Straight men don't make photo albums!"

"Katyusha made it, not me!" Matthew insisted.

"C'mon, Matt, if you're going to make excuses, at least try!" Gil laughed. "If it's hers, why doesn't she have it?"

"None of your business," Matthew answered before shrugging Gil's hand off of his shoulder and leaving the room. He didn't like talking about Katyusha and he certainly didn't want to talk about any of his romantic affairs with Gil. He liked her enough, but there was no way he was going to detail his relationship failures to the teenager he was sheltering for reasons that were unclear even to himself. Noticing the time, he opened the fridge to try to figure out what to make for dinner.

"Aw, hell no!" he suddenly heard before Gil came charging into the room. "You can't leave it at that! Something juicy happened and you better tell me what!"

"No," he replied as he picked ingredients out of the fridge for spaghetti and meat sauce.

"C'moooooon," Gil whined, sinking down into one of the kitchen chairs and flopping onto the table like a dying fish. "Pleeeeease? Teeeeeeell meeeee! I'll whine all night if I have toooooo!"

"I'll throw you out," Matthew threatened, setting ingredients on the counter before turning on the flame on the stove.

"No, you won't."

Matthew cringed. She was right and they both knew it.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease?"

"Fine!" Matthew growled, "If it makes you shut up!"

"So mean," Gil muttered under her breath.

"Says the girl mooching off me," Matthew muttered. There was a small noise behind him that he was pretty sure was Gil sticking her tongue out at him. He sighed. This was one of the downsides of living with Gil. It was like sharing a house with a two-year-old sometimes.

"Soooo?" Gil prodded.

"It's not that interesting of a story," Matthew warned her.

"I don't care. So what happened?"

Gil had sat up at the table and was looking at him eagerly. Matthew turned back to the stove and started cooking while he talked.

"Katyusha was my girlfriend in college. She came here to study from Ukraine and after we graduated, her student visa expired and she went home. I never heard from her again after she left. That's it."

There was a slight pause.

"That was terrible. You suck at telling stories," Gil informed him.

"I told you it wasn't an interesting one," Matthew shrugged.

"You could've _made_ it more interesting!" she said. "I'd have never known you were lying. Like, you should've made the girlfriend have a terminal disease. Or she could've been a secret agent who had to leave you because your life was in danger! Or she was forced into an arranged marriage and had to leave you! Or maybe she left after she found out that you were gay!"

"_I'm not gay!_"

Gil snickered at his outburst and Matthew decided to ignore her for a while, at least until dinner was on the table and he couldn't help commenting when Gil added liberal amounts of honey to her spaghetti. They ate mostly in silence and after Gil washed the dishes, she did her homework while Matthew read in the living room. When it started getting late, he poked his head into Gil's room to remind her about her doctor's appointment the next day.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember," she muttered as she scribbled something in her notebook.

"And afterward you have your ultrasound.

"Got it," Gil said, flashing a thumbs up at him.

* * *

Gil's appointment with Dr. Wang passed quickly enough. The Chinese man asked Gil how she was feeling, took her blood pressure, recorded her weight, and had Gil take a urine test. Then, he listened to the baby's heartbeat and concluded that everything was normal. After the appointment with Dr. Wang, Gil and Matthew went to the hospital for the ultrasound.

"Hi, Miss Beilschmidt, Dr. Williams," the ultrasound technician greeted them cheerfully. "All right, Miss, you can lie on down here and pull your shirt up."

Gil lied down on the bed next to the ultrasound machine and pulled her T-shirt up to reveal the growing bump. Matthew looked up at the blank screen on the ultrasound machine, feeling just a little awkward, remembering very clearly how he'd walked in on her mostly unclothed the day before.

"This might be cold," the technician warned her before she squeezed a clear gel from a tube onto Gil's stomach. She shivered and the technician grabbed a large plastic apparatus that looked almost like a microphone and pressed it down onto Gil's stomach and moved it around in the gel. After a few seconds, a shadowy vaguely-human form showed up on the screen. The image was blurry and only in shades of gray, but the lines of a head and a body were clearly visible. A rhythmic thumping accompanied the picture.

"There's the baby's heartbeat," the technician announced.

"Whoa," Gil said, staring at the screen. Matthew looked at her and was surprised to see that she was smiling. Considering how negatively she'd been reacting about her pregnancy so far, it was shocking to see her looking up at the picture of the baby with a complete absence of negativity. Her eyes remained glued to the screen the entire time as the ultrasound technician continued to point out the structures on the baby and explain how big it was.

"We're almost done here," the technician said. "There's just one last thing; do you want to know the gender of the baby?"

Matthew watched Gil bite her lip for a few moments before she shook her head.

"Nope, I'm good," she said and the technician smiled at her before taking off the microphone-like apparatus and cleaning it off.

"All right, you're all finished. You can clean up and I'll print you a picture, okay?"

Matthew offered Gil a handful of paper towels and she cleaned the remaining gel off of her stomach before pulling down her shirt and hopping off of the table. The ultrasound picture was printed out and handed to them and the two left the hospital.

* * *

"So, I've been thinking."

The words from Gil came as they were in the car on the way home from the hospital. They were the first words Gil had said since she had first seen her baby.

"About what?" Matthew asked, glancing over at her. She was sitting in the passenger seat, staring at her hands, which she was twisting together.

"The kid," she said. "I can't get an abortion and I've been looking at more adoption sites, but there's no way I'm gonna trust any of those people. I mean, even when I find a couple that looks nice and doesn't have a creepy profile, I still end up worrying. Like, what if they get a divorce, or one of them dies, or the guy turns out to be a total prick who leaves the wife and kid? Like in Juno!"

"Juno was just a movie," Matthew reminded her.

"Well, duh. I'm not stupid, I know that," Gil said with a tinge of annoyance in her voice. "The point I'm trying to make here is that I don't think I can go for adoption. So I've sort of been thinking about keeping the kid."

"That's a very big decision," Matthew said with difficulty. "Babies are a lot of work and if you make that decision, you'll be responsible for your child for a long time. You're still very young and it'll be really hard to support yourself and the baby, especially by yourself."

"I know that," Gil replied. "I've been thinking about this for a while."

Silence descended on the car while Matthew struggled internally with what to say to Gil. Caring for a child was a huge responsibility and though he didn't want to insult her by suggesting she was incapable of it, he had to admit in the privacy of his own thoughts that he wasn't entirely sure she could. But in the end, Gil would make her own decision and nothing Matthew could do would stop her. It was her body, her child, and her choice: he really didn't have any right to tell her what to do with herself. So he reached over and squeezed one of Gil's hands, trying to reassure her in a way he couldn't with words.

"You should do what you think is right," he finally said. He took his eyes off of the road for a second to look at Gil and she offered a shaky smile to him.

"Thank you," she mumbled, and then squeezed his hand back. She didn't let go, so Matthew let her hold his hand all the way back to their home.

* * *

***General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was a Prussian officer who whipped the American army into shape during the American Revolution.**

***The ultrasound technician was not a Hetalia character.**

***Juno is a movie about teen pregnancy, the main character of which is named Juno. I kind of vaguely spoiled it here. Sorry about that.**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

A/N Holy guacamole it's been a while. I am so sorry. I hope you enjoy and please review.

* * *

A loud yawn broke the silence in the empty hospital hallway. Matthew covered his mouth in an attempt to stifle the sound, exhausted from work since early in the morning. He'd left home hours before Gil (who had, surprisingly enough, over the last few months turned out to be quite the early riser) had even woken up. Closing his eyes, he leaned up against the wall of the hallway.

Thinking about Gil was always awkward. He usually ended up wondering how had one night of trying to help a troubled teen turned into almost three months of her worming her way into his life. And therein lay the awkward part: he still didn't know the answer and it bothered him.

He still wasn't sure. He knew he could be a bit of a pushover sometimes, but this went even beyond that. Not quite understanding what "this" was unsettling for Matthew. And any chance his traitorous brain may have tried to use to force him to think about circumstances he'd rather not face at the moment was shattered by a set of fast approaching footsteps. Too tired to dodge, Matthew suddenly found himself crushed by his brother's uncontrolled strength.

"Matt!" he called out loudly, squeezing Matthew in joy. "Bro, it's been _forever_ since we've had a chance to see each other! Are you free? Let's have lunch!"

All of this was uttered in what seemed to be one breath and before he knew it, Matthew was being dragged-spluttering helplessly-to the hospital cafeteria without ever having given a word of agreement. And so he found himself sitting across from his younger brother poking at a soggy salad while Alfred horked down his second hamburger in five minutes. He fought back the urge to gag at Alfred's table manners, unchanged since he was three.

"Seriously, that bastard Braginsky lets Toris do everything! It's not fair! He's such an ass!" In his fervor, flecks of half-chewed hamburger spewed forth from Alfred's mouth. Matthew cringed.

"You're disgusting," he informed his brother. Alfred stuck out his tongue. Matthew responded by very maturely flicking a carrot at his brother's forehead, starting a miniature food fight that ended with several fries down his scrubs.

"Ugh," Matthew shuddered and he shook processed potatoes from his sleeves. "I'm surrounded by children."

He didn't miss the tense look that crossed Alfred's face.

"Umm, hey, so I've been meaning to talk to you about that," Alfred said. At the confused look on his elder brother's face, he quickly elaborated. "I mean this whole thing with that teenager. It's kinda...weird, y'know? I mean, she's been there for _months_, man. What exactly is going on?"

Matthew sighed-yet again-and buried his face in his hands.

"Al, for the _last time_, I'm just helping her because she has no place to go and _that's it_."

Alfred shrugged.

"Can't blame me for being curious," Alfred mumbled defensively."You'd feel the same way if it were me." Matthew remained silent, unable to respond to that. At least, not without admitting Alfred was right. And there was no way he'd do that.

"I'm just worried about my big bro," Alfred continued softly. "I mean, this whole thing isn't normal. It was never normal!"

"Not really, no," he agreed. It took a moment for Matthew to try to answer the actual question, mostly because he'd been asking himself the same thing since the very beginning. "I couldn't throw her out at first and I really don't mind having her around," he tried lamely. "She's really more of a roommate."

"Roommates pay rent. She's _totally_ taking advantage of you, Matt!" Alfred cried out, visibly distressed.

"Probably," Matthew admitted. "But really, I–" He stopped short of saying he _liked_ having Gil around. She certainly caused him a lot of headaches, but, well. Saying he _didn't _like having her around wasn't quite true, either. "I really don't mind having her around," he settled on repeating. And then, almost against his will, he found himself admitting, "And it's nice to not be alone in the house."

"So get a cat," Alfred countered. "Or a non-mooch roommate. Or anything more normal than a pregnant charity case. Like a girlfriend! Seriously, how long has it been since you've even gone out on a date?"

"Not that long," Matthew countered defensively. Alfred shot him a look that clearly said, "Really?"

"Matt–"

"Alfred!" a bright cheery voice called out, interrupting. "How strange it is to be seeing you here when your lunch break is almost over!"

"_Braginsky_," Alfred hissed at the sight of his enemy with such venom it was almost comical. Scratch that, it was _definitely_ hysterical to see Alfred tense up like an angry cat. Matthew would have laughed if he weren't so relieved that the approach of Alfred's superior had cut off a conversation that was heading in a direction he'd really rather avoid.

"You had best be hurrying up if you want to make it back in time," Dr. Braginsky said cheerfully to Alfred. "And perhaps eat fewer hamburgers at lunch. I would hate to see you on my operating table trying to graft a vein to your heart!"

Alfred gaped like a fish while Matthew tried to hold back his laughter as Braginsky walked away.

"I hate him so much!" Alfred growled when he'd regained whatever wits he had. "That _jerk_! That evil dickface!" He hopped to his feet, gathering the trash from the three burgers he'd eaten, and started walking away.

"And don't think I'm done with you!" Alfred called over his shoulder to a snickering Matthew. "We're so finishing this conversation later!"

Matthew rather doubted it, but gathered up his trash as well, ready to head home for a well-deserved nap.

* * *

Meanwhile, a similar conversation was about to happen some miles over among the three teenagers eating lunch under a tree.

"–and you should have seen the look on Matt's face, _priceless_," Gil laughed as she finished an anecdote. She missed a look exchanged between her two best friends, but did notice that she was the only one laughing. "What? You guys don't think that's funny?"

"No, it is it's just that…" Antonio trailed off for a few seconds. Francis gave him a knowing look that immediately put Gil on edge. "Well, Francis and I have been talking and we, ah, …"

"We're concerned," Francis butted in, without his usual melodramatic flair. That in itself caused dread to pool heavily in Gil's stomach. She shifted awkwardly, re-balancing her lunch on her lap that five months of pregnancy was starting to shrink.

"About what?" she asked defensively.

"'Matt'," Francis said bluntly.

Some of the tension left Gil then.

"Why would you be worried about him? You don't even know the guy!" she laughed.

"That's the part we're worried about," Antonio added softly. "We've never met this man but you're living with him and we really can't figure out why. Well, besides the obvious reason."

"You could've always stayed with one of us when all of...this–" Francis gestured vaguely at her bump "–happened."

Gil scowled at the motion. Since she'd started showing more people than she cared to count had been doing that. Along with pointed glances, whispers, and outright insults. It was _really_ starting to piss her off.

"You know the old bastard would've hunted me down if I'd gone to your place," she retorted. "Unless you _want_ me to die of blood poisoning or massive hemorrhaging I had nowhere to go!"

"He could still find you here at school," Antonio pointed out, though he was overshadowed by what Francis said next.

"He's taking advantage of you, Gilberte."

"Don't use that name," Gil snapped instinctively. "And how is Matt taking advantage of _me_? _I'm_ the one shamelessly mooching off him."

"He's a lot older than you, isn't he?" Antonio said awkwardly. "I'm pretty sure that he was breaking a few laws with you until recently."

Gil stared blankly at her friends.

"...What?"

They looked awkwardly back. Francis was the first to break the silence.

"Ah, Gil? Matt, he's... He _is_ the father, yes?"

Gil's brain short-circuited. Silence descended on the group once more as Gil tried to force her mouth to make noise besides a stutter.

"Oh, _God_, fuck no!" she nearly shouted when her brain decided to regain the powers of speech. With a considerable amount of effort, she fought back her pregnancy-induced overly-sensitive gag reflex. "Jesus, _no_. No, no, no, no, no. No. No. Gross."

Francis raised an eyebrow. Gil would've shouted something nasty at him if she weren't trying so hard not to barf at the disturbing thought of her and Matt (of all people).

"You can't blame us for wondering," he declared defensively. "You surprised us out of the blue a few months ago with the news that not only were you living with some strange man we'd never even heard of but you were pregnant, too. Most people would've 'connected the dots' so to speak."

"And you always say nice things about Matt," Antonio piped in. "And after you first moved in with him you spent so much time with him instead of us. We were really confused!"

"I couldn't hang out because Matt didn't trust me with a key for a while!" Gil replied, exasperated. "But we're not like _that_ at all! And we never have been. Matt's just a friend."

(Okay, so maybe friend was a bit of a stretch, but at least it sounded somewhat normal.)

"Okay, Gil," Francis murmured in a tone that clearly said he didn't believe her. He and Antonio both went back to their lunches and Gil was left silently fuming, her appetite long gone. She stabbed her food with a fork viciously, silence hanging over the friends like the proverbial albatross. Some of the frustration from the argument started to leave Gil as her lunch became more and more sponge like but the peace was short lived. It shattered when Antonio opened his mouth again.

"Umm, Gil? You do know who the father is, don't you?"

Something inside Gil snapped.

"Seriously, guys, you too?" she cried out and blinked furiously to beat back the sudden burning in her eyes. The accusations and stares and general talking-behind-her-back had been bearable before but now, coming from some of the only people she had trusted not to treat her differently for getting knocked up? It hurt all the more. Well, who needed those assholes if all they were going to do was talk behind her back about how much of a slut they thought she was. Being alone was much better anyway. She struggled to her feet and needing something to vent her feelings on, flung her lunch tray in Francis and Antonio's general direction. Gil wanted to storm away after sneering a clever, biting retort but, finding her throat aching and constricted, hurried away quietly instead. The school nurse let her ditch school after she claimed morning sickness (she was only half-lying. The fight left a noxious aftertaste in her mouth) and Gil left for home early.

* * *

The bus ride to Matt's apartment had never seemed longer to Gil. In the middle of the day, it was nearly empty. The only other passengers were a handful of women and their children who'd probably gotten their start the same as Gil. At least they offered sympathetic glances instead of disapproving ones.

"I can't believe strangers on the bus and judging me less than my rotten, jerkass best friends," Gil thought sullenly to herself. Thinking about the encounter again made her eyes start to water and she rubbed her eyes angrily, cursing her hormonal imbalance. She didn't need those losers. Or anyone. Crying over them was stupid.

Gil tried to distract herself by people-watching from the bus window until it pulled up to her stop. When she let herself in the apartment, she was surprised to see Matt sleeping on the couch. She stood awkwardly in front of it, her eyes glued on him. She'd never gotten home before him and the surprise was rooting her to the spot. He'd taken his glasses off before falling asleep; Gil had never seen him without his glasses, either. Matt looked a lot younger without his glasses on and sleep had wrinkled and disheveled his clothes and hair. It was really weird to see him like this and for some reason, she couldn't stop staring. Eventually her aching back forced her to set her backpack down and the _thunk_ woke Matt.

"Gil?" he mumbled sleepily and Gil finally shook herself out of the weird daze.

"The one and amazing only!" she proclaimed boisterously and struck a pose.

"Why'd you have to wake me? I was having a wonderful dream where I had my apartment back to myself again," he mumbled as he sat up.

"You love me and you know it!" Gil insisted. "Your life is vastly improved by my presence!"

Matthew rolled his eyes as he put his glasses back on.

"I saw that! And I thought you were supposed to be the adult around here?"

For a second, it looked as if Matt were going to say something surprisingly snarky for such a mild-looking guy when he suddenly frowned. "Gil, have you been crying?"

"What. No!" Gil lied badly, avoiding looking at him. "It was...allergies."

"Allergies," Matthew deadpanned. "_Before_ spring?"

"... They're pre-allergies."

"Well, okay. But if your pre-allergies keep bothering you feel free to talk about it with me, okay?" he said before heading to the kitchen. Gil's throat tightened again and she followed him.

"It's just my loser friends being jerks," she admitted before slumping into a chair. "They're judging me. Just like everybody else."

"They said that?"

"Noooo, not exactly." Gil frowned. "But it was heavily implied!" True, they _technically_ they hadn't said a single negative word, not in the whole time since she'd first told them about being pregnant. Which put them fur longs ahead of everyone else, at least in the judgment department. And now that some time had passed and she was talking about it out loud the whole fight seemed pretty stupid. She would've wanted to know if it were the other way around.

"I'm sure whatever they said they didn't mean it like that way and they'll apologize," Matt said reassuringly. "And if they did, who needs those assholes, anyway?"

He said the words with such a serious face Gil couldn't have stopped herself from laughing if she tried.

"Too true!" she agreed when she was finally able to stop laughing. Feeling much better, her appetite made a reappearance rather quickly and upon the discovery of very little food in the apartment, Matthew suggested they get something to eat together. It wasn't very often that the two did much of anything together and it made Gil feel stupidly happy to joke and talk with Matt almost like they were friends instead of two people living in the same space. It was probably just a side effect of feeling low earlier to be feeling so much better over something so simple, she decided.

Gil then resolved not to fight with Francis and Antonio for a while. Feeling lonely did weird things to her.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

A/N: Oh, look, monthly updates instead of yearly! Hopefully, I can keep this pace up. I really do want to finish this story. Oh, if you review this chapter, could you give me your thoughts on something? I like to make Canada a little more snarky than in canon because it's a personal headcanon of mine that Prussia brings out the snark in him, but I worry that it makes him seem out of character. Does it work for you, or is too OOC? Either way, please enjoy and review. :)

Also, the second section of this chapter talks a little about miscarriage, so if that kind of thing bothers you, you can just skip over that part.

* * *

The rest of the weekend passed rather uneventfully and by the time Monday morning rolled around, Gil had almost forgotten about the altercation with Francis and Antonio. In fact, she only really remembered it when she was walking to school from her bus stop and saw her friends looking guilty and apologetic. (At least Antonio did. Francis always had a pretty decent poker face on.) And because messing with people was always fun, she crossed her arms as if she were still angry, accompanying the gesture with a glare.

"What?" she asked brusquely, biting the inside of her lip to keep from laughing at Antonio's hangdog expression.

_"We're sorry, Gil!"_ Antonio wailed and crushed her into a hug. "We didn't mean it like that at all! Francis and I were just worried about you but we don't think that way about you, not even a little bit so please don't be mad and-" the rest of his sentence degenerated into a babble of tears and what sounded like Spanish. Gil patted his shoulder gently (maybe feeling just a little bad that he was reacting so strongly).

"I know, it's cool," she told him. "You're lucky I'm both amazingly awesome _and_ benevolent and have decided to forgive you."

Antonio beamed at her and Francis cracked a tiny smiled too, offering Antonio a pink hanky drenched in rose scent. Gil felt a smile spread across her face entirely against her will.

"Ugh, this is so cheesy," she groaned. "Let's just go to class." Antonio bounded cheerfully ahead, followed closely by Gil and Francis.

"Hey," she mumbled awkwardly to Francis. "It doesn't matter who it was. He's...not involved so I just..." she trailed off, not sure exactly what she wanted to tell her friends. Or why it was so difficult to tell anybody about what exactly had happened that had landed her in this situation. Of course she trusted her friends and they knew every other one of her secrets but somehow she couldn't bring herself to tell them about this. Francis squeezed her elbow in understanding.

"It's fine, you don't have to tell us anything. But if you ever want, just give us a name and Antonio and I will take care of him."

Gil snorted.

"I'm not letting you guys kill him! I'm not going to jail for taking out a hit!"

Francis clutched a hand to his heart and mock swooned.

"Oh Gil, cherie, you _wound_ me thinking we would do a poor enough job to get caught!"

"Yeah, Francis and I know what we're doing!" Antonio insisted. "We wouldn't get caught!" Gil just laughed at them again and they made their way to class, Gil thankful that Matthew had been right about her friends apologizing. Through her happiness that things were back to normal, she noticed an odd fluttering in her stomach that had been there for a week or so now. She couldn't quite put a name to the feeling but quickly enough forgot about it when Francis began regaling them with stories of his antics trying to seduce his current love target.

* * *

"Okay, your weight looks good," Matthew said, noting the number down on the chart of the patient he was with. "You can sit down."

"Oh, good!" his patient giggled happily as she hopped down from the scale. "Looking at the scale is starting to get depressing! I don't even want to think of what it's going to read at the end!"

Matthew chuckled along with her and picked up the doppler to listen to the baby's heartbeat. This was what he loved about his job. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world to guide his patients on the road to parenthood, watching their excitement grow along with their babies. Smiling, he moved the bell of the doppler on the soft mound of a belly just beginning to swell, listening carefully through the earpiece for the gentle beat as she continued to chatter.

"We're so excited, my husband and I! We're both hoping for a girl, you know. When do you think we'll be able to find out?"

"Probably your next ultrasound," he answered distantly. He fought the urge to frown as he moved the doppler across the belly in front of him, dread slowly freezing up his veins. He didn't hear anything. Matthew's mouth went dry. He started over, moving the device as slowly and carefully as he could, sweeping her whole belly and straining to hear something, anything.

Silence.

"D-dr. Williams? Is something wrong?" She was looking at him, a look of fright on her face. Matthew's heart suddenly felt as if it had just plunged into the floor and he felt the calm expression he'd tried to keep crack. Telling her that she had miscarried was one of the hardest things he'd ever done in his life.

* * *

Matthew went home that night feeling like a failure. He knew that the miscarriage wasn't his fault and that there was next to nothing he could have done to prevent it, but that knowledge didn't stop his heart from aching or his mind from replaying the awful moment again and again. Gil seemed to sense his poor mood the moment he walked in. She scooted over and made space for him to collapse on the couch next to her.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked him when he covered his face with his hands.

"No," he mumbled.

"Yeahhh that was a pretty dumb question. So what's wrong?"

"A patient miscarried."

"Lucky bitch."

A moment of awkward silence followed.

"Sorry, I was just kidding. Now's not the best time for jokes, huh?"

"Not really, no."

"Right."

After another awkward silence followed, Gil got up and dashed out of the room. Matthew nearly groaned. Now he felt bad about snapping at her, too, on top of everything else. He lied there for a while, wallowing in guilt and self pity until he smelled something cooking. Cooking or burning, he couldn't tell but either way decided to high tail it into the kitchen before something catastrophic happened. Slinking into the kitchen, he saw Gil poking at a horribly malformed, tan-colored lump in a pan. She must have noticed his horror-filled gaze because she waved the spatula clutched in her hand defensively.

"Okay, so that one turned out pretty bad, but I'll eat it."

"What _is_ it?" Matthew asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"It was _supposed_ to be a pancake," Gil sulked. "But it somehow turned into this weird, Satanic blob. Making these is a lot harder than you made it seem."

Matthew felt a tiny smile make its way onto his face despite everything and he took the bowl of (rather lumpy looking) batter and—without really thinking about it—Gil's hand that she was holding a spoon with.

"You want to pour the batter into a circle so that it's flat and round," he instructed, demonstrating his words with the spoon, guiding her hand and pouring out a perfectly round pancake.

"That is so not fair," Gil insisted. "Yours is perfect!"

"Well, I've been making these a lot longer than you," he shrugged before pointing at the pancake with his free hand. Bubbles were quickly forming in the batter. "One the top starts to bubble like this, you can flip it over." He moved her hand to do so, tightening his grip on her hand so that he could flip it over and reveal the other side of the pancake which had cooked to a lovely golden brown. It wasn't until then he realized that he was holding her hand, her fingers warm and curled underneath his. Matthew flushed a little when he noticed how closely he was standing behind Gil to guide her hand and tried to surreptitiously move into a less intimate position. He moved onto the next part of the pancake lesson hurriedly. "The next part's a little tricky. You can use the spatula to look under the edges to see when it's cooked." Still holding her hand and awkwardly unsure of what to do about it, he showed her how to check on the pancake. When the bottom of it was cooked, he stole the spatula from Gil and flipped the finished pancake over onto a plate Gil had set aside with a flourish.

"I hate you a little bit, right now," she announced. Matthew shrugged again, but couldn't help but feel a moment of immature joy at the look on her face. Oh, God, she was rubbing off on him, wasn't she?

"It just takes practice. It was years before I could make pancakes half as good as my grandmother's. I still haven't quite figured out how she did it."

"I wish _I'd_ had a grandma who made me pancakes! What kinda fancy pancakes was she making, anyway?" Gil asked in wonder.

"You really should have tasted her cooking. They weren't particularly fancy, but I know for sure that she would add extra butter to the batter. That's as far as I've gotten in figuring out her secret recipe," he admitted.

"Oh," Gil said. "I was just using Google."

It was at that point that Matthew noticed his laptop sitting on the kitchen counter. His password-protected laptop.

"How did you get onto my computer?"

Gil looked away guiltily.

"For the record, I found out your password completely by accident! I didn't know you were typing it when I looked over your shoulder this one time. So yeah, sorry about that, but I needed the recipe. You looked pretty crappy and pancakes can never fail to make someone feel better!"

Matthew felt a strange jolt in his stomach at Gil's admission. She was really a strange girl, he thought, to manage to both impose herself and do something so kind at the same time. It was confusing and pleasing all at once that she had made pancakes for him when he felt lousy. And it had worked. He was already feeling a lot better.

"Thank you," he finally decided on saying. "That's very sweet of you."

"Psssht, I just wanted to be able to make myself pancakes whenever I want!" Gil blustered loudly before shoving him aside and taking back the spatula and violently changing the subject. "I'm trying again! By myself this time!"

Her next attempt was much better. It bore an unfortunate resemblance to an amoeba, but at least this pancake looked edible (unlike the first monstrosity which had been dumped unceremoniously in the trash). As Gil struggled to produce increasingly attractive pancakes, Matthew quietly set the table. He'd just sat down when Gil slammed a pancake down onto his plate hard enough to make him jump.

"Look at this beauty, Mr. Perfect Pancakes!" she crowed, waving her spatula excitedly at the plate. "It's the Venus de Milo of pancakes!"

"'Mr. Perfect Pancakes'," he repeated dryly. "I expected better insults from you."

"Shush!" she cried out and flailed uselessly. "Just eat it!"

The pancake she'd served him did look much better than the others, but Gil looked so cocky and flustered it teased at Matthew's senses of immaturity and irresponsibility that he made a noise of mild surprise.

"Eh, it's all right," he answered her, almost laughing at the offended look that crossed Gil's face.

"Lies! My pancakes are awesome and you just can't handle that they're better than yours!" Gil cried out dramatically as she made a small tower of pancakes on her own plate before setting the serving plate down on the table. Matthew served himself more and they both added liberal volumes of maple syrup to their plates before starting to eat. Whatever recipe Gil had found, it was pretty good.

"Not bad," he commented after his first bite and smiled at Gil.

"You mean 'amazing'," she corrected. They chatted like normal until Gil suddenly piped in with a question.

"Hey, now that you know I know your password, can I ask you something? Why is it 'maple leafs'? I mean, leaves are cool and all, but you didn't even spell 'leaves' right. Aren't you a doctor? I thought you were supposed to be smart!"

Matthew nearly choked.

"No, no, no, it's the _team_, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Hockey team, not tree leaves."

"Oh. … Yeah, that does make more sense."

He was pretty sure that Gil knew he liked hockey (there'd been at least one game night during the hockey season when they'd both been in the apartment) but he'd never really talked to her about it before, even though they'd been talking and on increasingly friendly terms.

"I wanted to play for them when I was a kid," Matthew admitted.

"How cute!" Gil said in a sickeningly sweet voice. At his raised eyebrow and "really?" expression, she added, "I mean, is that so? Do continue."

"I don't know why I tell you anything," he grumbled under his breath.

"Oh, come one, is this another juicy story? I wanna hear!"

"It's not juicy."

"You always say that!" Gil pointed out. "Seriously, just lie to me abut your stories, I'll never know the difference."

"It's not much of a story. I played hockey when I was young, I got injured too badly to play, I went into medicine."

"...Your stories need a _lot_ of work, Matt."

"Oh shut up."

* * *

When they were finished eating, Matthew washed dishes while Gil wandered off. After the dishes were clean and put away, he found Gil poring over his photo albums. Again. It was probably a bad sign that it didn't even faze him anymore.

"Aren't you tired of invading my privacy yet?" he asked jokingly.

"Nope. And I'm looking for something!"

Matthew decided he'd rather not know and turned on the news. After a few minutes, Gil plopped down on the couch next to him, and an open album crashed onto his lap.

"Is this you?" She pointed at an old picture, a team picture from the team he was on in high school. Her finger was pointing at his face in the old picture, leaner and younger. It was strange to look at them again.

"Yup," he answered her.

"Wow," Gil said as she pulled the album on to her knees. "The first time I saw this I thought that was your brother! You look so young! You must've attracted a lot of ladies back then, eh?" She waggled her eyebrows for effect.

"Not quite."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot, you're into dudes."

"I AM NOT."

Gil's resulting peals of laughter were suddenly cut off and she frowned, clutching one hand to her stomach.

"Gil, are you all right?" Matthew panicked.

"Yeah, I think so," she frowned. "It's just their weird feeling I've been getting lately. Like a weird, tickling feeling."

"Oh," Matthew sighed and quickly calmed down. "Does it feel like butterflies in your stomach? Or maybe a muscle twitching?"

"Yeah, exactly!"

"It's the baby kicking."

A strange, unreadable expression took over Gil's face.

"Kicking, huh?" she said quietly and her hands hovered over the bump in her stomach, as if she were deciding whether or not to lay them down. After a few moments, her hands settled down on her belly and Matthew watched her carefully. A smile tugged at her lips as she felt the baby moving.

"This is kinda cool," she confessed. Matthew couldn't help but feel a sense of relief that she seemed happy about the kicking. Since she hadn't had the choice to decide what to do about her pregnancy, he'd been a little concerned about how she would deal with the baby. He was relieved to see that she wasn't completely unhappy with her situation. He hoped that things would continue to improve for the girl who had somehow managed to become a friend instead of a charge.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

A/N: Thanks for the input, everyone. It was very helpful. :) Enjoy and please review.

* * *

Matthew flipped idly through a magazine, sighing deeply as he did. If there was one thing he hated about living in an apartment, it was not owning his own washing machine. Waiting in the basement of his apartment building for clothes to wash and dry was such a pain in the ass, especially on his day off. He was always tempted to buy a house every time he had to do laundry. After a tortuous ninety minutes, Matthew was finally back in his apartment with a batch of clean laundry that would hopefully last a _long_ time. The clothes were dumped unceremoniously on his bed and he was sorting through his shirts when his hands were suddenly filled with a scrap of black lace.

It took a moment for Matthew's brain to process what was happening but when it did realize it, he let out a yelp of horror and dropped Gil's underwear—for indeed, he had been clutching her underwear—as if he'd been burned. Her underpants (and through the horror-induced haze clouding his mind he noticed that it was a thong) landed on his bed where they lay there, staring at him mockingly. A furious blush erupted onto his face; with her oft childish behavior it was easy for Matthew to forget that Gil was actually an adult. A woman, who certainly had adult interests that suddenly filled him with a hideous discomfort to be thinking of the teenager he had sheltered in that frame of thinking.

_Was this what it was like to watch a teenage daughter grow up? _Matthew wondered bleakly, wanting to slap himself for acting so pathetic. There was no reason to be so bothered by a thong. This wasn't a big deal! So Gil's sexier underwear had gotten mixed in with his things, he was a grown man, not a twelve-year-old! All he had to do was put them in her room. He reached out to pick them back up but his fingers froze a few inches short of the lace of their own accord.

"Why is this happening to me?" he groaned aloud when several minutes of internal struggling got him no where nearer to actually picking them up. Unwittingly, his mind flashed back to that moment-only a few weeks ago-when he'd held Gil closely by accident at the stove.

Inexplicably, his heart began to race. He shook his head abruptly to clear his head. This was stupid! His friend's underpants were nothing to get worked up about! Matthew balled up his fists, snatched up the underwear, and flung it into her room. Problem solved. Although his frazzled emotions and the lingering irregular thumping of his heart would've begged to differ.

He tried to clear his mind and focused on other household chores. The incident had almost left his mind a few hours later when Gil barged into the apartment, dropping her backpack as she raced to his bathroom. Matthew stared after her, wondering if he should be concerned.

"NOOOOOO!" a plaintive wail echoed out of the room.

Concerned it was. Matthew followed her into the bathroom and found Gil perched on his scale, holding her burgeoning stomach out of the way to see the scale's reading, looking appalled.

"Gil? Is everything all right?"

"It finally happened," she muttered in a low, hollow voice. "I can't fit into the desks at school anymore. The janitor had to get a card table and chair for me. I have to sit in the corner away from everybody else where everyone gets to stare at me like the fat freak I am. Because _I've gained 21 pounds!_" With that last outcry, she sank down onto the edge of the tub, looking on the verge of tears. Matthew awkwardly sat down next to her and patted her shoulder. He was terrible at comforting people, but tried anyway.

"Uh, you know it's perfectly natural to gain a little weight during pregnancy. And 21 pounds is very much in the normal range of weight gain."

"21 pounds isn't 'a little'," Gil wibbled. "I look like a whale. My hot body is ruined _forever!_"

"Not _forever_," Matthew tried again. "After you have the baby you can get hot again. I mean lose the weight! I mean..."

Gil didn't seem to have heard his faux pas, sniffling miserable as she suddenly began to grope her chest. Matthew almost choked at the sight and his patting hand froze in midair.

"My boobs aren't even getting bigger," she whined sadly. "That was the one thing I was actually looking forward to. Oh my God, being pregnant s_ucks so hard!_"

Matthew gave up on trying to say something comforting and just resumed patting Gil's shoulder. Eventually she stopped snuffling and sat up.

"Stupid hormones!" she growled and batted Matthew's hands away. "Ugh, I need ice cream."

Gil headed off to the freezer and Matthew was left in the bathroom awkwardly.

* * *

Later that night and continuing through the week, Matthew couldn't help but notice that Gil was pulling constantly at the hem of her shirts. They were starting to ride up from the added bulk of pregnancy. He hovered between mentioning it to Gil or not; on one hand, it looked like she desperately needed some new clothes, maternity clothes, but on the other hand, he wasn't particularly inclined to make her upset about her body again. Gil upset was always a disconcerting sight. Matthew finally decided to bring it up when he happened to look over at Gil and was assaulted by the sight of an exposed strip of her lower back (and was that a lower back tattoo? Forget it, he didn't want to know.).

"Uhh, Gil? Did you maybe need some new clothes? It looks like yours don't quite...fit...anymore."

She gave him a mildly offended look.

"Are you trying to say that I'm fat?" she accused angrily.

"No! No!" and then he stumbled all over his words. "It's just, you said, the other day, that you've—"

Gil cackled evilly and Matthew wondered how he could still fall for her tricks, even after four months of living together.

"Do you want to go to the mall this weekend or not?" he asked, having learnt by now that taking a direct route was the best way of countering Gil's shenanigans. Gil quickly sobered up.

"Thanks for offering, but I don't have the money for new clothes," she muttered.

"Don't worry about it, I'll cover you," Matthew offered, feeling awkward. He hadn't meant to bring up Gil's money issues. She only looked more uncomfortable at that.

"I feel weird having you pay for my stuff," she mumbled.

"Oh, don't worry, you'll be paying me back," Matthew added, grinning devilishly. Finally, a chance to give Gil a taste of her own medicine. "I've been keeping a list of things I've paid for you. When you get a job, you owe me."

Gil gaped at him and her mouth worked open and shut like a fish. Matthew relished the feeling of having one-upped her. Until she started hitting him.

"_You dick!_"

"You're the one that brought it up!" he laughed.

"Well, fine then! I'm gonna spend all your money and just you try and get it back!" Gil threatened. Matthew just smiled, very much doubtful that Gil would carry out that threat. She could be annoying and she was certainly mischievous, but she was still a good person at heart. He could see that.

"Duly noted."

* * *

They ended up going to the mall that Saturday. They'd gone to the mall in the next town over from Circle Valley because that mall was bigger and it was less likely they'd see someone they knew. Gil and Matt entered the mall and consulted the directory, looking for a maternity clothing shop. Gil looked apprehensive as they approached the first one on the map.

"The stuff in the window looks so... _matronly_," she frowned.

"Well, there are two other maternity stores to look at or you can always look for some cuts that are loose enough for your new shape in regular clothes," Matthew suggested.

"Let's try that second thing," Gil declared and they changed course toward a store filled with merchandise that looked like the inside of a punk's closet.

"Oooh, I always wanted to shop here but my old man never let me!" she exclaimed before dashing off like a kid in a candy store. Matthew followed more calmly, trailing behind Gil as she draped at least a dozen different things over her arm and practically danced toward the fitting rooms. Spotting a chair, Matthew settled down to wait for her to try things on. He'd been playing Solitaire on his phone for almost ten minutes when Gil poked her head out of the curtain separating the fitting rooms.

"Maaaatt," she called out and held out a flowy, red dress, "could you see if they have this in one size up?" She pulled on a sweet, innocent face that was probably meant to get him to agree. On Gil, those faces always tended to look a little creepy if only because she never naturally made faces like that.

"Sure," he agreed, hoping that she'd go back to looking normal. Once he took the dress, she did and he went off to find what she was looking for. As he was rifling through the dress rack, he heard the heavily-pierced cashier make a whipping noise which he stoically ignored.

"I found it," he announced when he returned to where he'd left Gil.

"Hooray!" she cried out before throwing the curtain open. Still in her underwear. She snatched the dress from Matthew's suddenly slack grip and shut the curtain again. Not fast enough, though. It had been fleeting, but Matthew had gotten a good view of _everything_. It was burned into his eyeballs against his will; pale breasts cupped in her bra, stomach curved out, a pudginess that was beginning to cling to her thighs, her hips, her arms, and her ass. Matthew collapsed pathetically into the chair, feeling like a dirty old man. In his mind, he had tried desperately to deny it after the Underwear Incident (as he'd come to call it in his head) the other day, but he failed now; all that he could think of in that moment was that Gil really was a _very_ attractive young woman.

And Matthew felt like a horrific pervert for it.

"_What is wrong with me?"_ he thought in despair before the curtain opened again and Gil stepped out, frowning.

"Ugh, I thought it might still work when I tried on the smaller one, but in the right size it just looks like a tent," she lamented, grabbing at the extra fabric billowing out over her waist. "Darn you, baby bump!"

"You can try a belt?" the cashier suggested. He pointed at a rack of belts to the side. "Gathers up the extra stuff, y'know."

Gil picked up one of the belts and struggled to hook it behind her with her new shape. Matthew reached out without thinking and took the ends from her hands and fastened it shut for her, fingers brushing against her back and the awful feeling of being a perverted, old man multiplied tenfold. He stepped back and Gil looked at herself in the mirror, beaming.

"Hey, thanks dude!" she called out to the cashier. "It looks awesome!"

"I think your boyfriend'll appreciate it, too," the cashier added, winking at the both of them. Gil looked confused.

"I don't have a boyfriend."

The cashier shot a sympathetic look to Matthew that he resolutely refused to acknowledge. Gil skipped back, blissfully ignorant, into the fitting room to put her own clothes back on and the cashier piped up again.

"Tough, pal."

That pity didn't seem to stop him from scribbling what was presumably his phone number on their receipt.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

A/N: This chapter goes into some serious areas and was pretty difficult to write. Any feedback is, as always, greatly appreciated. I also am going to start crossposting this fic to my tumblr account. More details are in my profile, but I will _not_ stop posting here.

I'm not sure if I need a trigger warning for mentions of suspected rape, but please know that if that triggers you, it does pop up in this chapter, although no rape occurs.

* * *

"Oh ho ho," Gil chortled when she saw the number scribbled on the receipt when they left the store. "Flirting it up with the cashier while I wasn't looking, eh Matt? Nice one! Although I'm surprised he didn't set off my gaydar. It's usually pretty good. So, you gonna call that number?"

Matthew flushed.

"I'm pretty sure that number's for you," he muttered. And then halfheartedly added, "And I'm not into men."

Gil patted his arm patronizingly.

"Oh, sweet, naïve Matt," she cooed and Matthew decided to ignore this. Gil was happy enough to move on to the next store and he tried to put what had happened in the last one out of his mind. He followed Gil absentmindedly and a few stores later, she dropped a pile of clothes into his arms.

"Try these on!" she ordered and started to push him toward the dressing rooms.

"Wait, what? This isn't my kind of store!" he protested as she managed to steer him into a fitting room. It was much more tame than the first one they'd gone into, but the clothes here really were for teenagers, not almost thirty-year-olds.

"Just do it!" she shouted before shutting the door behind him. He looked through the shirts she'd picked out for them and begrudgingly admitted to himself that they were more mature than the rest of the merchandise in the store, but they still weren't really age or work appropriate.

"I can't wear these," he insisted through the fitting room door. "I don't want to look like one of those middle-aged creeps going through a midlife crisis."

"You won't," Gil countered. "And stop acting like you're super old! You're still, like, twenty-something. Live it up!"

"Gil—"

"Also, FYI, I'm barricading this door until you try something on. _And_ show it to me!"

Matthew managed to hold back an exasperated sigh. Sifting through the pile she'd given him, he tried to find something in the pile he'd be least uncomfortable in. He settled on a brown V-neck sweater that he couldn't help but feel like a hipster in. Although the color _was_ nice. In fact, he thought as he looked in the mirror, once he had it on, it did look pretty good. Suddenly the door banged open.

"HAVE YOU TRIED SOMETHING ON YET?"

Matthew jumped and swore reflexively.

"See, it looks good!" Gil declared while he tried to get his heart rate back into a normal zone. "The brown makes your eyes stand out! Plus you're kinda skinny so it shows off your body, too! _And_ it makes you look younger. It's perfect for picking guys up!"

Matthew had to admit he did like the sweater, but it still felt too young and told Gil so (after insisting that if he were trying to pick up anybody in it, it would be a woman). She waved her hand dismissively.

"Well, you look good in it and I'm paying for it (eventually) so get the sweater! Please?" she pulled the doe eyes on him again and managed to get Matthew to try on everything she'd given him and buy most of it. And he walked out of the store with a small pile of new clothes that he found he really liked. He was glad Gil had convinced (read: bullied) him into trying something new. Not to mention it was a sweet gesture for her to want to do something that made him happy. How could he stay mad at her after that?

Matthew and Gil were chatting happily as they made their way through the department store that they'd entered the mall through to exit once they'd tired of shopping. He'd even managed to forget about some of his earlier worries about Gil by the time she suddenly stopped in her tracks, blanched, and ducked behind a display case. Matthew blinked, then looked over at her. Gil look sick and horrified, something he'd never seen before. It was a complete 180 of her attitude the entire time he'd known her. Scanning the store for a reason she might be upset, Matthew only noticed one other customer, a brunet teenager, who looked to be about the same age as Gil. He wore glasses and had an unfortunate cowlick that defied gravity and curled _up_. Matthew turned back to Gil and called her name softly, trying to get her attention.

"Um, can we leave through a different exit?" she whispered back, so quietly he almost didn't hear her.

"Of course," he answered even though he was confused as to why she'd want to do that. She'd straightened up to leave when the store employee suddenly called out to her.

"Hey, miss, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Gil answered weakly. It drew the attention of the brunet, who suddenly made an ugly expression.

"Please, let's just go," she begged, tugging on Matthew's hand, dragging him toward the exit. He allowed her to pull him, confused and worried about this uncharacteristic reaction. They'd almost made it to the exit when the teenager strode over to them, blocking the way out. He looked down on them in disdain and Gil tensed up.

"I'm surprised you were even telling part of the truth," he commented offhandedly to her. "Well, if anything this confirms my belief that you lied to me." The stranger then turned toward Matthew and spoke.

"I feel it my duty to warn you that _this_ one he nodded disdainfully at Gil, who looked as if she had been slapped—is rather deceitful. I don't know what she's told you, but I wouldn't put too much faith in its truthfulness. Good day."

And with that, the stranger walked away, leaving Matthew in a state of confusion. Gil tore away from him and dashed out to the parking lot. Unsure of what was going on, he followed her.

* * *

He found her leaning against his car, wiping tears from her face.

It stopped him in his tracks and all he could do was stand there pathetically and watch. Matthew had never seen Gil cry. He'd seen her angry, upset, overjoyed, frustrated, on the verge of tears, faking tears, but never had he seen her _actually_ cry. She wiped at her eyes furiously when she noticed him staring.

"What're you looking at? I just have allergies!" she cried out belligerently. "Now open the car."

Deciding that it was probably better to give her some space since she was clearly upset, Matthew wordlessly unlocked the car and Gil shut herself in the back. The shopping bags were tossed in the front seat and he drove them both home, Gil sniffling in the back all the while. She barricaded herself in her room the minute they returned. By that time, Matthew had a pretty good guess of who exactly they'd run into at the mall and thought that he should probably leave her be.

Three hours of unbroken silence from Gil changed his mind. The only answer she gave to his knocking on her door was a petulant "Go away."

"What's wrong?" he asked anyway.

"Nothing."

"So _nothing_ made you run sobbing from the mall?"

Alfred often told Matthew that his comforting techniques needed work. He was probably right about that.

"_I said that was allergies!_" she yelled through the door. And then added under her breath, "Allergies to _assholes!_"

At that point, Matthew would later wonder if it would've been better to accept her word and leave Gil alone but... He really couldn't stand by when she was obviously upset. So he grasped the doorknob and announced, "I'm coming in."

"Too late, I locked the door."

He opened it easily.

"This room doesn't have a lock."

"Dammit!" Gil swore and popped up from the blanket she was curled up in. "How did I not notice that?"

Her eyes and nose were still red, Matthew noticed. She was glaring at him as he crossed the room and gestured to her bed.

"Mind if I sit down?"

"_Yes_, I do!" she cried out. He ignored her and sat down anyway. She glared and tried to kick him, but trapped in a blanket it didn't do much damage.

"I'm only asking because I'm worried about you, but you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to," he said as gently as he could manage. Matthew wasn't going to push the issue if she really didn't want to talk about it, but he did want to make sure she was okay. Gil mustered up a weak glare.

"You're not gonna leave me alone until I do though, will you?"

Matthew blinked. It was odd how they could be both on the same train of thought yet on completely different wavelengths.

"No," he assured her. "If anything, that sounds more like something _you_ would do. Have done. To me. Several times now, actually."

"Oh, yeah," and Gil let out a tiny chuckle. Silence followed and stretched on; Matthew had just assumed she wasn't going to tell him what was wrong when she spoke up again. "That guy was my ex boyfriend."

Matthew had suspected as much.

"Ah," he said, unsure of how else to respond. Gil continued.

"And by 'boyfriend' I mean 'a total douchebag that I was dumb enough to think cared about me'," Gil sighed. "And it's his fault I'm like _this_." One arm curled around her stomach as she spoke. "To make a long story short: he was just looking for a squeeze while his girlfriend was out of town. By the time I found out she even existed, it was too late and I was knocked up." Her voice lowered as she burrowed more deeply into the blanket, unintentionally curling up against Matthew's side as she did. "He didn't even believe me when I tried to tell him."

A sickened feeling had crept slowly over Matthew while Gil spoke; the way this ex had treated Gil was pretty terrible but disgust almost overwhelmed him at the last admission.

"What a _bastard_," he growled.

"I know, right?" Gil added listlessly. She fell silent after that. Matthew realized she was leaning against him and without even thinking about it, his arm curled around her. His hand ended up rubbing gentle circles into Gil's back in an attempt to be soothing. He wasn't sure how well that was working, but at least she wasn't crying? Awkwardly, he kept at it. Matthew couldn't help but wonder about a few things Gil had just told him and pondered the risk of upsetting her more by asking her. But an unpleasant thought was lodged at the forefront of his mind and finally, out of concern, he settled on asking.

"Gil? Is it okay if I ask you something?"

"Sure, whatever," she murmured.

"That guy—"

"Roderich," Gil interrupted quietly. The wistful way she said his name bothered Matthew and he went ahead with his question.

"Right. Roderich. It's just, I've never seen you so upset. Was what happened between you two not consensual?"

Gil shook her head.

"Oh, okay. … Good," Matthew added as an afterthought. "Just wanted to make sure you didn't get hurt or anything."

"Naw, it was totally consensual, even though I was a complete idiot about it," Gil groaned. "I mean, _I_ came on to _him_. Ugh. I feel so _stupid_."

"You shouldn't," he told her. "You couldn't have known he was a creep. They usually don't announce that kind of thing. It's not your fault he turned out to be a jackass."

"Yeah," Gil said but sounded unconvinced. Matthew wasn't sure what else he could say to her, so they just sat quietly for a while. Eventually, Gil struggled out of the blanket burrito she'd twisted herself into and pushed away from him, claiming that TV would make her feel better.

"And, uh, thanks for listening and junk," she mumbled. "I'm glad I have a friend like you."

* * *

A/N: Writing Prussia crying and emotional was _weird_ but I figure even Prussia can have a moments of weakness. I hope that worked. If it didn't let me know. I always like to hear what I can improve upon.

Also, a couple of you guessed right who the father was from the very beginning! It's a good thing I don't write mystery novels. (Roderich goes to a private school. He and Gil don't have much contact, so he wouldn't have seen her at school. I wasn't sure if I'd get a chance to work that into the story, so I just want to point it out now.)


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

A/N: More seriousness, ahoy! (Eventually. First have some silliness!) I hope you enjoy and please review.

Also, I've been on vacation and finally found my writing mojo again! I've actually finished most of the rest of the chapters of this fic in advance, which I am going to be releasing weekly. Seriously, I only have the last chapter to write now. I think I can now safely say that I _will_ finish this fic, even if it kills me. There will be 17 chapters so with this chapter, we're over halfway there! Hooray! This fic will be 100% published by the end of July.

* * *

The relative quiet in Matthew's apartment was suddenly broken by an incessant knocking at the door.

"Alfred's here!" Gil called out to Matthew, who was still changing out of his work clothes. It turned out not to be a very helpful warning, because Alfred burst into his home (Matthew really regretted giving him that extra key sometimes) and into his bedroom in under a minute.

"MATT!" Alfred yelled cheerfully before tackling his older brother.

"Alfred, you fat hoser, get off me!" Matthew grunted as he tried to throw his brother off.

"Meanie!" Alfred cried before getting up and dusting off his hands. "I come all the way across town to take you out like an actual normal person and all you do is call me names?"

"Yeah, Matt, you big meanie!" Gil echoed from the doorway.

Oh, Lord, they had teamed up. Graciously accepting defeat, Matthew apologized to his brother, albeit in a backhanded way that still insulted Alfred (though of course, Alfred couldn't tell) before getting up. Matthew finished changing while Alfred chattered away and as they were about to leave, Gil, who had plans herself for that evening, waved and called out, "See you later! I'll probably be back sometime... tomorrow I guess!"

"Okay, see you," Matthew answered and waved back before Alfred grabbed his collar and dragged him to his car. They ended up at a loud club Alfred had chosen with plenty of flashing lights and cheap drinks. Matthew was severely disappointed by the lack of Molson but Alfred insisted that this club had the best appletinis in town.

"I'm not sure whether I should be concerned that you like appletinis or impressed that you're willingly eating fruit," Matthew commented dryly once they had their drinks.

"Yeah, well..." Alfred trailed off, searching for a retort. "All that beer will make you fat!"

"I'll have to borrow _your_ clothes then."

Alfred pouted.

"Dammit, I never win these things with you! You're deceptively sweet looking but pure evil inside! I should call you... Dr. Evil or something!"

Matthew just grinned because as much as he loved his brother, insulting him was hysterical. His verbal ripostes were always so endearingly weak. They chatted over their drinks about whatever came to mind, until Alfred brought up the one topic Matthew had futilely hoped he would avoid (for once).

"Sooo, how's that teenager? I notice she's still around."

"She's fine, I guess?" Matthew answered him. Alfred nodded.

"That's good, that's good."

He didn't say anything after that and Matthew hoped that he would drop the subject.

"So what was with that whole 'see you later' thing?" Alfred switched to falsetto and batted his eyelashes obnoxiously in what was apparently supposed to be an imitation of Gil. Matthew sighed.

"Well, when people say 'see you later' it usually means they're going to see each other later," he explained in as patronizing a way he could. Alfred rolled his eyes.

"Seemed _awfully_ cozy to me," Alfred noted. Matthew facepalmed. "I mean, I wouldn't blame you. She's not bad looking."

And oh, those words brought back Matthew's badly-repressed realization that Gil was actually rather attractive. He'd managed to forget about it after the whole mall debacle but Alfred's words brought it all back.

"I knew it!" Alfred gloated as Matthew slumped onto the bar. "I fuckin' knew it! I knew you could only hide it for so long! I knew you two were having a thing from the very beginning! I knew it!"

"We are not 'having a thing'," Matthew mumbled into the wood of the bar. "We have never 'had a thing'."

Alfred was quiet for a moment and when he spoke up again, Matthew was surprised at the quiet way he asked him, "Do you _want_ to have a thing with her?"

Matthew blinked and sat up.

"I don't think so," he answered. And then, for some reason Matthew couldn't place (which he would later blame on alcohol loosening his tongue) he ended up telling Alfred all about the mess when he'd found the underwear, ending up slumped back over the bar again as he told the whole pathetic story.

"Well, there's no problem there!" Alfred said brightly, clapping a hand on Matthew's back. "You can appreciate the fact that she's pretty without doing anything else, you big dummy! I mean, I saw The Avengers the other day and even though Jeremy Renner has a really great butt, it doesn't mean anything! You can stand by and quietly appreciate someone's butt without wanting to do anything else with them!"

"That...was a really weird example, Al."

He _did_ have a point though. In fact, now Matt felt extra stupid about freaking out so badly about what had happened.

"And you know what else?" Alfred blathered on. "There's an _even better _solution to those kinds of problems! Find someone better! There are plenty of cute girls here tonight! Just tell them you're a doctor and you'll find someone! Now go out there and repress your problems!"

"...Thanks," Matthew said. The last part of Alfred's advice was probably not that great, but he had made some important points that had surprisingly enough, turned out to be very helpful.

"Aww, you're welcome!" Alfred trilled. "I'm always happy to help out my bro with his love life!"

"You need to be quiet now."

"Hell no, not when I'm right for once."

"The key word there is 'once'."

"You know, I'm a little disappointed that you would freak over underpants. Seriously, dude, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were some kind of virgin after all that!"

"So, you pay attention to people's butts often now, eh Al?" Matthew added, trying to change the subject. "What's Ivan's butt like?"

Alfred turned a bright, cherry red and Matthew knew his subject-changing tactics were as successful as always.

"I have _never_ looked at that creep's butt," he insisted loudly, "but if I did, I'm sure it would be disgusting! Because he's fat and extremely unattractive!"

They bantered on for a while and by the time Matthew got home, he ended up feeling much better about his life.

* * *

Sometime during that week, Matthew was typing peacefully on his computer and drinking the first of many morning coffees when out of the blue Gil burst out of the bathroom, dripping wet and only wearing a towel. Matthew pinched the bridge of his nose in stress (and with the convenient side effect of blocking the sight from his eyes and his slowly heating face from _her_ sight). He silently repeated Alfred's oddly-useful advice to himself before he looked up again.

"Can I use your computer?" Gil asked when she had his attention.

"Dry off first, or you're going to destroy it," he insisted. And hurriedly added, "And clean up the water you dripped everywhere."

She pouted, but left the kitchen.

"And put on clothes!" Matthew added as a afterthought.

"Boo! You're no fun!" she cried out before sticking out her tongue and disappearing back into the bathroom. He sighed as the door clicked shut and focused on his laptop again, saving what he had been working on before he was going to lend it to Gil. At least the heat in his face was starting to die down now that she was gone. Not quite fast enough, though, because shortly after that Gil exited the bathroom—thankfully fully dressed—and loudly exclaimed, "Oh my God, are you _blushing?_"

"Of course not!" Matthew exclaimed but the sudden rush of embarrassment from the accusation made his face flush again. Gil nearly skipped in joy over to the kitchen table to leer at him.

"You _totally_ are!" Gil crowed before reaching across the table and pinching his cheeks. Matthew yelped and flailed helplessly in response, but she only cooed, "Awww, you look like a little, blushing, virgin schoolgirl! I think I could even tie your hair into pigtails!"

"Leggo 'f my fasche," he ordered fruitlessly.

"But you look so cuuuuute!" After a short struggle, he managed to pry her hands off of his face. (At least annoying moments like this reaffirmed that he did _not_ want to "have a thing" with her.)

"You know, you're making a pretty terrible case for getting me to let you use my stuff," he pointed out once his mouth wasn't stretched in bizarre directions. Gil pouted.

"But I need to look something up!"

"Maybe you should have thought about that before you manhandled my face," Matthew said somewhat seriously; Gil glowered at him.

"Fine, don't let me use your computer. Not like I care!" she huffed before sitting down at the table with him. She sat in silence after that and Matthew stupidly lowered his guard and took a sip.

"So I'm starting to get stretch marks, what do I do?" Gil said nonchalantly. Matthew spat coffee onto the table.

"You couldn't have waited until I swallowed?" he coughed, trying to clear his nasal passage of coffee. Gil shrugged.

"You wouldn't let me use your computer so I couldn't look it up myself. I had no choice but to ask you!" she reasoned out loud. "Seriously though, I have these freakish red patches everywhere. This is easily the most horrifying part of the never-ending nightmare that has consumed my life."

"Cocoa butter," Matthew answered once his airways were free of caffeinated beverages. "Moisturizers help skin keep its elasticity and they can reduce stretch marks."

"Oh, cool. I noticed them in the shower and I was worried that I would never be able to get rid of them," Gil sighed in relief. And because neither of them had anything in particular planned for that afternoon, the decision was made to go buy cocoa butter later that day once the two were finished with school and work.

* * *

Gil began to despair when she reached the moisturizer aisle of WalMart. The cheapest tubs of cocoa butter were only a few dollars but considering what little money she had left had to last her the rest of the month... A few dollars suddenly seemed luxurious. Contrary to what most people probably believed about her, Gil _hated_ borrowing money. She hated owing anybody anything and if it hadn't been for the fact that clothes were necessary to avoid being slapped with public indecency fines, she wouldn't have borrowed Matt's money for her new clothes in the first place. Heck, West, that precious angel, had literally had to force her to take his money the first few times he'd offered and it still bothered her to take it. As it was, she only used what he gave her for food (not that there was anything else left after food). Looking at indulgences like fancy lotion felt like a waste of his trust.

She weighed the few extra dollars she'd have to sponge off her little brother over having red scars on her breasts and stomach for the rest of her life and after some lengthy soul searching, the cocoa butter won, victorious over her pride. The cheapest package of the stuff was tossed in the cart Matt was waiting by. She trailed after him as he went about the rest of his shopping, stopping only when they had reached the baby section.

"Is there anything you need from here?" Matthew asked her, the concern on his face turning Gil's stomach. "The baby's going to be here pretty soon. If you need anything, you should probably start looking now."

There were _plenty_ of things Gil needed; money to pay for anything out of a store that wasn't the 99¢ store was one of the more prominent ones on the list. Apparently Matthew knew that, too, because he followed up quietly with, "If you're having trouble paying, I don't mind lending you the money."

"_I_ mind," came tumbling out of her mouth all on its own. She scowled when she'd realized what she'd accidentally said. Matthew shrugged.

"You already owe me for the clothes. You might as well."

Did she have much of a choice? Babies needed cribs and diapers and clothes; she couldn't _not_ buy anything. West could only lend her so much and she had no other options. Skin crawling with embarrassment and shame, Gil nodded and they ventured into the pastel pink and blue aisles.

"Let's just get some basics," Matthew offered and Gil followed him. Apparently, the first of the basics included a baby carrier. She almost cried when she looked at the prices.

"This one's a combination baby carrier and stroller, that's convenient," Matthew said awkwardly, probably trying to break the hideous silence.

"Sure," Gil agreed hollowly and picked out the most plain, cheapest one in the store. Picking out the rest of the baby supplies went much the same way. Cheap crib, cheap clothes, cheap diapers. But even the least expensive things added up and Gil couldn't stop herself from doing the mental math. The sheer volume of baby things piling up in the cart was making her more and more anxious. Her heart beat faster and her chest feel tight; Gil felt like she couldn't breathe and a nausea that she thought had long passed bubbled up in her stomach. She was starting to break when a loud squeal nearly echoed through the store.

"This is so cute!" a happily expectant woman cried out, clutching a stuffed elephant. Her friend, apparently also pregnant, was holding up a tiny dress. They both giggled and chatted away cheerfully, not even thinking about it before adding their items to carts full of cute luxuries.

"Hey, this thing is kinda cute!" Matt suddenly said brightly, holding up a truck-patterned bib. It was the last straw. Bile rose in Gil's throat and she gasped, "Gotta pee!" before taking off. She made it to the bathroom before she was sick. When the gagging stopped, she flushed the toilet and sat on the closed seat, still shaking.

It had all been too much. _Matthew_ was more excited about her pregnancy than she was and _that_ had to be one of the most fucked up things she'd ever witnessed. And those other women, they had looked so damn _excited_ about their pregnancies and just this morning Gil had called hers a never-ending nightmare. The differences among the three had been so stark it had made Gil sick to her stomach. With how she'd ended up pregnant, she'd nearly forgotten that babies were normally something to be happy about, little pieces of yourself to shower with love, bring joy into your life, and all that jazz. And then there was _her_.

How was she supposed to actually keep this thing when she couldn't even muster a little bit of excitement or like for it? It made Gil wonder; had her own mother felt the same way? Had _she _once been the one called a never-ending nightmare by the person who was supposed to care for her unconditionally? And what about her grandfather? Had he, too, felt the same, burdened with a baby dumped on him by an irresponsible daughter? Could she do any better than the shit job her guardians had done with her?

She didn't know. And it made her feel worse than she'd ever felt in her life. But she wanted to do better. She wanted to try. Gil placed her hands gently on her stomach.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly to the fetus. "I've been doing a shi- I mean, a really bad job of this, haven't I?"

Almost as if in response, it kicked. Gil gently caressed the area where the kicking was, feeling a little hand or maybe it was actually a little foot press back. This... wasn't bad. She didn't even realize that she was smiling.

"Well, from now on I'm going to do better," she promised. "uh, kid? Tyke? Baby?" None of the words felt right on her tongue yet, but they didn't feel as foreign as they used to. "Whatever. We'll figure it out. But yeah, I'm gonna do right by you, okay baby? We'll be okay. We'll be okay."

* * *

Matthew checked his watch again, looking around worriedly for Gil. She'd run off looking white as a sheet; he hoped she was okay. He wasn't sure how long he'd been waiting when she came back, looking much better.

"Are you okay?" he asked just in case. She nodded and smiled.

"Yup. I'm fine." She looked fine so Matthew let himself stop worrying about her disappearance. He found himself very much relieved that she seemed to be doing much better. Of course, it was really normal to be happy that your friends were happy, too. After picking up a few more things, they rented some movies so they could have a movie night on the weekend and then headed back to the apartment.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

A/N: Please enjoy and review. Also, all seventeen chapters are completed. Weekly updates will be made until the last chapter is posted.

* * *

Gil checked her watch again and then reread the text Francis had sent her. She huffed in exasperation when she noticed the extreme difference in the time in the text and the time it actually was.

"I thought you said you were hanging out with your friends today?" Matt questioned from where he was reading, seemingly echoing exactly what she was wondering herself.

"I thought so too, but Francis is super late," Gil informed him. "That jerk was supposed to pick me up twenty minutes ago. He better not have forgotten me."

Fifteen more minutes of waiting passed, Gil's foot tapping more and more quickly with each minute past their scheduled meet up time. The baby seemed annoyed at Francis, too, kicking and shifting more than it had earlier that morning.

"Ugh, now I have to pee again!" Gil announced loudly.

"That was more information than I cared to know," she heard Matt mutter under his breath as she shut the door to the bathroom. That was also the exact moment someone knocked on the door. Gil bit her tongue trying to stop herself from swearing when she heard the knock. She'd been trying to cut back on the language because it was probably a bad idea to swear around babies and she needed the practice. (Could babies hear in the womb? She needed to remember to look that up. Or maybe ask Matt?)

"You must be Gil's friends," she heard Matt say awkwardly through the door. "She's still getting ready."

Mentally she apologized to Matt for leaving him to answer the door for her friends, but a pregnancy-shrunken bladder was a force to be reckoned with. After she was done, Gil rushed to get ready to leave so that she could get Matt out of the awkward atmosphere that descended upon him, Francis, and Antonio. They were all standing stiffly and silently in the doorway when Gil exited her room with her shoulder bag in place.

"Bye, Matt, be back... uh, eventually!" she blurted out as she rushed them from the apartment.

"What took you so long?" she demanded to know once they were all safely in Antonio's car.

"Mamá needed to use the car so we had to wait!" Antonio explained.

"You could've at least told me you were gonna be late," Gil grumbled.

"We would have, if Antonio hadn't broken his phone," Francis replied. "And mine ran out of battery sending texts to that _delightful_ English major."

"Why didn't you try smoke signals then?"

"And risk getting ash on Dior? I don't think so!" Francis cried out, clutching his shirt defensively. "And why did you not tell me this Matthew was so dapper? I would've dressed more nicely if I'd known."

"I thought he was pretty cute too!" Antonio added blithely. "But I still like brunets better!"

Gil stared blankly at her friends, Francis with an excited and mildly lecherous look on his face and Antonio beaming like he usually did at Lovino. She'd...seen _and_ heard that wrong, right? Francis and Antonio didn't seriously think Matt was _hot, _did they? Gil had always thought that he wasn't _horrible _facewise, but she'd never though of him as particularly good looking before either. Francis' words were so contradictory to what she'd always thought that she couldn't help but try to reason it out. It left her so confused that for a moment, she couldn't even form words through her bewilderment. Finally, she managed to slur out an ineloquent, "What?"

"You always talked about him like he was an old man, I had no idea that he was so young and attractive! I suppose the glasses are a little unfortunate, but mon Dieu, those eyes! I'd still call him a seven," Francis mused while Gil slipped deeper and deeper into an abyss of sheer confusion.

"I'd say six!" Antonio added, although no one paid him any attention.

"He does look better without his glasses. And he _does_ have nice eyes," she found herself agreeing even though she was still dumbfounded by Francis' sudden lapse in taste. If she really thought about it, she could _maybe_ see it. Matthew did have very nice eyes, a clear blue that paired nicely with blond hair that framed a face with high cheekbones that were pretty okay looking. His nose looked like it might have been broken once but the crookedness gave his face an endearing bit of character and he had a well-defined jawline that actually made him look kind of rugged and manly. She couldn't help but remember that tense moment just a month ago when she'd told him all about the whole Roderich situation and the gentle way he'd tried to comfort her in his own awkward way and oh _fuck_, Francis was right, wasn't he?

"When have you seen him without his glasses?" Antonio asked, jarring her from sudden and horrible realizations.

"I dunno, when he was sleeping I guess?" she answered shrilly, still trying to sort out the mountain of conflicted feelings that was descending on her because of stupid, horny Francis. Francis cocked an eyebrow up.

"Well, if I needed any more proof that you really are seeing him, that was it."

"_We aren't dating_," Gil growled for what seemed to be the hundredth time. "And I don't know what's wrong with you, Franny, he's totally average! _Barely_ a four!"

"I think there might be something wrong with _you_, here, Gilberte," Francis sniffed. "You wouldn't happen to know if he likes men, do you? I'd _love_ to get to know the good doctor better."

Gil suddenly felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of water in her face. Her mouth worked uselessly for a moment and then suddenly an ugly, white hot feeling constricted her chest. It made her want to punch Francis in the face and it jarred her almost as badly as the _other_ part of the conversation had. If she allowed herself a moment of honesty, it almost felt like jealousy. Francis was still waiting for an answer, looking at her strangely.

"He likes girls," she snapped. "He's super straight. You should have seen the rack on his last girlfriend, she was a F-cup for sure!"

"...Are you jealous?" Antonio piped up, disturbingly observant (for once).

"_No!_ And the fuck would I be jealous of?" Gil cried out, her pledge to swear less quickly forgotten in her flustered state. "The girlfriend? Only thing _I'm_ jealous of there is her boobs!"

Antonio and Francis were giving each other weird and knowing looks and Gil glared at them both.

"So, graduation's next week, right? We should have a party!" Antonio suggested a little too loudly, trying to dissipate the awkwardness. The conversation turned away and stayed away from Matt for the rest of their outing, but Gil couldn't stop herself from thinking about it for the rest of the day.

* * *

She was still reeling later that night when her friends dropped her back off at Matt's. Only marginally slightly attractive Matt. Yeah. She still couldn't quite wrap her head around it. But she could sure as hell deny it till the day she died. Which was the course of action Gil unconsciously decided on. When she entered the apartment, she was surprised to see Matt still up and watching a movie.

"You're back early," he commented.

"Yeah," she responded absentmindedly and dropped onto the couch next to him. It was a relief on her aching back and for the first time that day, the baby _finally_ settled down.

"Is everything okay?" he asked. "You didn't have another fight with your friends, did you?"

"Everything's fine," she said, then added, "Just so you know I'm going out again next weekend. We're having a graduation party apparently." If last minute plans by Antonio counted as a party.

"Oh, your graduation's coming up? When is it?"

"Friday."

"Okay then, have fun."

"I'll try," Gil said dryly, "but I hate ceremonies. They're so boring. I'm only going because my friends'll drag me if I try to skip out on it. If I had it my way I wouldn't go."

"Well, you only graduate high school once," Matthew pointed out.

"That's once too many times as far as I'm concerned," Gil griped before snatching some of the popcorn from the bowl in Matt's lap. She tried to watch the movie with him even though she had no idea what was going on at this point. They'd been watching for a few minutes when Matt spoke up again, looking curious.

"If graduation is next week, when does your school have its prom?"

"Two weeks ago," Gil replied sullenly. "I skipped it."

"You skipped it?" Matt exclaimed. "Why?"

"Well, because for one thing, I didn't want to go to the trouble of trying to find a dress that actually fits me at this point. Not to mention all of my friends had dates except me and there was no way I was gonna be the weird, dateless loner of the group. Plus I get enough stares and whispers from my classmates at school. Why give them the chance to make fun of me some more? Besides, prom is boring and overrated. Chilling here alone was _way_ more fun!"

"Right. Sorry," Matt apologized. Gil tried to pay attention to the movie again, but it was far too late to get into the plot. Nothing made sense to her. Well, at least it gave her the chance to ask Matt something she'd been thinking about for a while.

"Hey, Matt? Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Since I'm graduating soon, I've been thinking about what I'm gonna do after I'm done with high school. Do you think I can still go to college with a baby?"

Matt was giving her an odd look so she added, rather icily, "And what's with that face? You think I'm too dumb for college or something?"

"Not at all!" Matt replied, looking mildly hurt by the accusation. "I was just a little surprised. You never seemed interested in college before."

"I wasn't," Gil admitted. No one had bothered to encourage her to apply and with good reason. She had never been interested in more school after high school, but with a baby she'd really had to reconsider. Gil did _not_ want to become some sort of welfare queen who could barely feed her baby. And there weren't very many high-paying jobs that didn't require more than a high school education. She found herself expressing the last of her thoughts out loud. "Babies as expensive as hel- _heck_. I don't think minimum wage is gonna cut it."

"Probably not," Matt agreed. "And I want you to know I have no doubt you can get through college academically. I get the feeling you're much smarter than you let on."

Gil ignored the mildly creepy feeling of someone she hadn't known that long figuring her out to reply.

"Of course I _can_ do it, I'm awesome!" she bragged. The real problem with going to college for Gil was embarrassing and only false bravado and phrasing her worries as a joke let her continue. "The part I'm worrying about is paying for it. I might have to sell a kidney."

"There are plenty of scholarships and financial aid out there, and since you'll be a single mother you can probably get a lot of help going to school, " Matt pointed out. "A lot of schools have a daycare center for the children of students. You can even take online classes so you can stay home when the baby's too young for daycare."

"Oh, I didn't know about that," Gil said, feeling relieved. "That's good."

"Yeah, it really is helpful," Matthew added before they went back to sitting in a comfortable silence. The credits of the movie Matt had been watching started playing and Gil felt a little had about making him miss the climax of his movie. He got up to put the disc away and Gil figured that as long as he was free, she might as well ask him the other thing she'd been thinking about.

"Can I ask you one more thing?"

Matt nodded and selected a new movie.

"I've been thinking about names and I've been asking around for second opinions. What do you think about Ava for a girl?"

He blinked but said, "That sounds nice for a girl. It's cute."

"Of course it is, _I_ picked it out. It was bound to be an amazingly good name for a baby," Gil stated proudly.

"What about a boy?" Matt asked.

"Frederick," Gil said immediately. "For my uncle."

"That's a good name, too," Matt agreed and smiled at her. Gil cringed at the soft and easy way a smile lit up his face and made him look younger and brought out the clearness of his eyes. She snatched the remote from him.

"What are we watching?" she blustered and smashed the buttons, trying to get the movie on so she would have something besides his face to look at. He'd picked out some sci-fi thing about zombies that Gil ended up completely engrossed in.

Until Matt slumped sideways over, fast asleep, his head landing on her shoulder. Gil froze for a minute before she slowly turned her head around, feeling like she was in a horror movie and something horrific was breathing on her neck. Well, if you counted doctors who your stupid friends made you realize was actually pretty good looking as something horrific, then that was exactly was was breathing on her neck. She struggled to swallow, her mouth feeling dry as she dared to look at him.

Gil had never noticed how long his eyelashes were before. She'd never had the chance to look so closely at his stupidly handsome face; now that it was pressed way too close she noticed. The sight was making her mind run haywire, her heart beat so fast she thought it might rival a hummingbird, and a deep flush spread over her face. Gil floundered mentally in this fashion for some time before she finally managed to calm down.

"This isn't a big deal!" she mentally berated herself, "So the guy's kinda handsome? Big deal! Lots of guys are!"

"Yes, but 'lots of guys' have never been so nice to you," a smug part of her subconscious pointed out. She staunchly ignored that part. After the horrible fiasco that was her relationship with Roderich, she'd sworn off love, hopefully forever, at the very least, for a long amount of time. There was _no way in hell_ she was going to let this derail her. Besides, it wasn't as if thinking someone was good looking equated love. The fact that she found him slightly attractive didn't mean anything beyond exactly that. It was nothing to get freaked out over.

Feeling much better now that she'd had time to think about it logically, Gil sat back to enjoy the movie. Matt would probably wake up on his own and that would be the end of that. Her subconscious was laughing at her again.

She ignored it.

* * *

A/N: I know the names are a little cliche, but I love them!


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

A/N: Glad to see everyone likes the (cliched) names! Please enjoy and review. :)

* * *

Matthew woke up slowly, feeling a pleasant warmth against his side. And a strange dampness on his front. Sensing that something was horribly wrong, his eyes shot open and the mystery was solved: he'd fallen asleep on the couch. And Gil was sleeping (and drooling) on his chest.

He stared blankly at her for a few moments, one eye twitching. That... should not look so endearing. A blush rose in his cheeks as Matthew realized that one of his arms was curled around her waist and she were hugging him. This had to be one of the more awkward moments of his life.

"_Do you want to have a thing with her?"_

Completely unbidden, Alfred's words came to mind again and Matthew decided that that the best course of action was to get away from Gil _now_. Several minutes of careful maneuvering got him extricated from Gil's sleeping grasp without waking her. Matthew sighed in relief when he finally got off the couch, free. It was still fairly early in the morning so he draped an extra blanket on top of Gil, and, on second thought, tucked a pillow under her head. She snuggled into the blanket once he laid it down on her and smiled in her sleep in a way that Matthew didn't see often when she was awake.

He walked away from the couch feeling very awkward about the whole thing.

* * *

The rest of the week passed relatively uneventfully until Friday. Matthew dropped Gil off at her her graduation, she grousing the whole drive about how much she didn't want to go the whole time, and then went to go to a function with his colleagues for the hospital. Midway through, he got a text from Gil reading, "gonna eat dinner w/friends be back probably." He couldn't help but smile at that and roll his eyes.

He didn't get home until late and when he did, he almost killed himself tripping over a box sitting on the floor. The crashing sound he made when he landed on the floor and his subsequently swearing apparently woke Gil, because she appeared over him as he lay sprawled on the floor.

"Oops, sorry Matt," she apologized before helping him to his feet. It was probably just hitting his head on the hardwood floor that made Matthew think Gil looked pretty cute with her hair mussed up and a look of concern on her face. He decided that he should probably see a doctor about that. It could be the side effects of a concussion. "I should've probably left those somewhere else. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he gasped. Once on his feet, Matthew took a closer look at the box that had felled him. It was sitting with a few other boxes. They all had bits of wrapping paper clinging to them, but he could still read the label of the box he'd tripped over. A new baby carrier?

"What's this?" he asked. Gil brightened and grinned happily.

"My friends threw me a baby shower after graduation!" she announced. "I was gonna ask if you if you still had the receipts for the stuff we bought. I can return some of it!"

"Yeah, they're on my desk," he answered, rubbing his aching behind.

"Sweet!" Gil said. "Now I'm gonna go back to bed."

It sounded like a good idea (particularly to his bruised backside and what he _hoped_ was a concussion) so Matt went off to bed, too.

* * *

"Good thing I never got the chance to open the junk we bought," Gil announced as they left the WalMart the next day after having returned a few things. "We even got the cash back! I was afraid they'd just give us store credit."

"It was very lucky," Matthew agreed. And he was feeling normal again today. It had been a good day so far. They were still a few feet away from the car when Gil suddenly stopped and shoved the bundle of cash they gotten back at the customer service desk at him, avoiding his eyes.

"Here you go," Gil blurted out. "I owe you, don't I?"

Matthew blinked and looked away. He pushed her hands away from him, feeling embarrassed. He did want Gil to pay him back (the things he'd bought for her _were_ expensive) but he didn't want to take her money when she didn't have a penny. He wasn't Scrooge.

"You don't have to do that. You need the money more than I do. I can wait," he said uncomfortably. He expected Gil to give in and take the money back, but was surprised when she pushed it back toward him instead with a determined look on her face.

"No!" she insisted. "This was your money in the first place. Take it!"

"Gil, I said no!"

"Yes!"

"I won't take the money!"

"Yes, you will!"

"I don't need it!"

"I don't care! Take the money! Don't make me shove it down your pants!"

Matthew paused, shooting Gil a disturbed look.

"'Down my pants'?"

Gil looked back oddly.

"Yeah, in your pockets. What did you think I meant?"

"You have to admit it was a very ambiguous declaration."

"Pervert," Gil scoffed before dropping the money. "If you don't take it, I'm leaving it here in the parking lot. _And_ I will consider that part of what I owe you paid back."

Before Matthew could even protest, she turned around and headed back to the car. Matthew sighed and picked up the money. He couldn't just leave it in the parking lot, although he did feel bad about sticking it in his pocket. Gil was smiling when he got in the car.

"Glad you came to your senses!" she proclaimed proudly and beamed at him. Matthew sighed.

"I really don't need you to pay me back right away," he repeated.

"Jeez, I try to do one nice thing for you and you won't accept it! Jerk," Gil huffed. Matthew sighed and turned on the engine.

Following Alfred's advice was all well and good when he was just dealing with physical attraction, but every time Gil did these sort of things, the pancakes, the clothes, giving back the money, every little gesture... Well, it reminded him that Gil was a kind and fun person to be around, even with her annoying moments. It remind him that he liked her personality, too, and it made Matthew begin to doubt his own answer when Al had asked him that life-ruining question at the club.

* * *

Later that week, Matthew had more hospital work scheduled. He was making his way down a hall when a blur smashed into him. Matthew picked himself up off the floor, wondering how he managed to end up there so often. He looked to see what had crashed into him; it was Alfred, who was white faced and panicked looking. Without even stopping to apologize (though that was really normal for Alfred) he ran off.

"That was weird," Matthew stated out loud. Alfred must have heard a spoiler of one of his TV shows. That was usually the only thing that made him that upset. Matthew made a mental note to call Alfred later in case something really was wrong. In the meantime, he continued on his way, only to run into Dr. Braginsky standing and chatting with a woman.

"Hello, Dr. Williams!" Dr. Braginsky waved cheerfully. His companion turned around to look and Matthew was shocked to see that even though it had been some years, he recognized the woman.

"Matvey!" she cried out, looking caught between joy and tears.

"Katyusha?" he replied cautiously.

"Oh, it is so good to see you!" she exclaimed and crushed him in a hug.

"It's good to see you, too!" he agreed happily and hugged her back. He couldn't believe it was her again, after all this time!

"Dr. Williams. I did not know you know my sister," Braginsky said in a dark, creepy voice. Matthew jumped away from Katyusha as if he'd been electrified and was horrified to see that his trademark creepy grin was gone (and who would have thought that looked even scarier?). It almost seemed as if his anger was radiating off him in a dark purple cloud. Matthew was almost too nervous to answer. Luckily, Katyusha was apparently used to how to answer her brother and tried to reassure him.

"Matvey and I were _friends_ in college!"

Braginsky smiled again and the creepy air disappeared.

"Friends? How nice."

"Yes, _friends_," Matthew repeated. Braginsky looked like he was about to say something else but a trembling, young hospital volunteer approached them.

"D-dr. B-braginsky," the volunteer stuttered. "The director n-needs to see y-you."

"Is that so?" Braginsky asked before clapping his hand down on the volunteer's head, squishing him down. "Let us go."

With the absence of Dr. Braginsky, the air felt slightly awkward to Matthew.

"How have you been, Katyusha?" he fell on a standard question. "What brings you back to the States?"

"I've been doing fine. I'm here to visit my brother before—"

She was cut off by an alarm set on Matthew's watch.

"I'm sorry," he immediately apologized. "I have an appointment..."

"Oh, yes," Katyusha stammered, tears forming in her eyes. Matthew had almost forgotten about her habit of tearing up so easily. He'd used to think it was so cute. "It's too bad we couldn't catch up."

"We could catch up during dinner later?" Matthew offered. It had been a long time since they'd seen each other; it would be really nice to talk and reminisce. Katyusha blushed.

"That sounds nice," she agreed. They made quick plans for later before Matthew had to dash off to his appointment, only a few minutes late and with a smile on his face.

* * *

Gil channel surfed lazily. There was nothing on but reruns on, she noticed with annoyance. She checked her phone, frowning when she noticed that Matt was late getting back from work. He hadn't said anything about working late today, had he? He usually said something when he did, but a quick check of her phone showed that he hadn't texted her to let her know he'd be back late. Gil was starting to get worried when the door to the apartment opened and Matt came in, smiling like Gil had never seen him smile before.

"Hi!" she waved cheerily. Matt headed straight for his bedroom, saying nothing but an offhanded "Hey" to her. Gil frowned. Was he ignoring her? She struggled to her feet and peeked into his bedroom. He'd changed out of his slacks and was putting on a casual shirt.

"Is that one of the shirts I got you?" she asked petulantly, upset about being ignored. Matt took a quick look at it and nodded.

"Yep." He didn't say anything else as he started to button his shirt. Gil frowned. Still ignoring her? She hadn't even done anything to deserve this! … Recently. Or was he still mad that she had forced him to take that money back?

"I'm starving, when are we gonna eat?" she whined, trying to get his attention.

"Sorry Gil, but you're on your own for food tonight. I'll leave you something to order a pizza or something. I'm going out."

Gil's eyes bugged out and she felt hurt for some reason that she couldn't quite place. Probably from being ignored.

"_You_ have a _date_?" she cried out incredulously. Matt laughed.

"Well, not quite a _date_. It's really more like catching up with an old friend."

"What friend? You have friends?" Gil quipped weakly. Matt didn't even get annoyed; he just continued to put on cologne.

"Yes, Gil, I have friends. And I'm getting dinner with Katyusha. I told you about her, didn't I?"

"The Ukrainian chick with the huge bazooms?" Gil asked, feeling her heart clench weirdly. "Isn't she in Ukraine? And why are you eating dinner with her, didn't she dump your ass?"

"She's in the States to visit her brother. Can you believe she's Braginsky's sister? What a small world! We ran into each other at the hospital."

Gil frowned more deeply as Matt gathered up his wallet and keys, then handed her a twenty.

"I think I still have some Pizza Hut coupons if you want to get a pizza," he informed her.

"I like Domino's better," Gil sulked, but took the bill anyway.

"I'm not sure when I'll be back, but I'll let you know. See you later!" Matt called out before leaving Gil alone. She gaped at the closed door. How could Matt just leave her like that? What a jerk. Gil flopped onto the couch again. Who cared if Matt went out? She'd have a great time and show him!

With that plan of action, Gil grabbed her phone and dialed Antonio. He was always up for a good time. He didn't answer, so she called again, and this time he picked up.

"Hey—"

"He's busy!" she heard Lovino growl before hanging up. Gil stared at her phone, disturbed, before she dialed Francis' number.

"Hey, Francis! Let's go do something!" she greeted him when he picked up.

"Oh, _d__é__sol__é_, Gil, but I already have plans."

"What!" Gil cried out into her phone. Seriously, Francis too? "With who?"

"Arthur!" Francis sighed dreamily. "He's been resisting my charms thus far, but hopefully he'll come around tonight!"

"When pigs fly!" Gil retorted before hanging up. "Ugh, everybody's getting laid tonight but me! Well, screw them! I'm going to have a great time by myself!"

Said "great time" didn't progress any further than sulking on the couch and trying to channel surf again. To Gil's great disappointment, there was nothing even remotely decent on.

"I miss Shark Week," she sighed. After ordering that pizza and adding a few toppings of her own, she settled in front of the TV to watch some of the movies Matt had lying around while munching happily on her pizza. Whatever Matt and his stupid date were eating was definitely much less delicious that what she was eating! Gil laughed loudly to no one in particular, spewing some pizza crumbs as she did. What a great time she was having by herself! She pitied any loser who was doing anything different.

A few hours in, Gil was feeling like she was having much less fun and started to wonder when Matt was going to get back. It was almost midnight. She frowned. That was awfully late.

"How long can dinner take, anyway?" she wondered aloud. And then her treacherous brain chose that exact moment to supply her with the information that Matt and the Ukrainian used to date and dates didn't necessarily stop after dinner. And considering Miss F-cup was visiting from abroad, she probably already had a hotel room and they were both adults. Gil froze, a slice of pizza slipping from her fingers and splatting on the carpet.

"No," she said. "No way, no way, no way." There was _no way_ Matt was scoring with her, was there? The thought made the pizza in her stomach turn and her throat burn. And _that_ was disturbing in and of itself. What the hell? Who cared what Matt did? It shouldn't bother her if he went out and got it on with Ukrainian hos! Unfortunately, that didn't make her feel any better. Gil tried to ignore all those awful thoughts swirling in her mind, but couldn't.

By 2:00 AM, Gil had to admit that Matt wasn't coming back anytime soon and that he was probably with _her_ now. And the implications of that devastated her for reasons she couldn't understand.

* * *

A/N: And the drama bomb _explodes!_


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

A/N: And the drama continues along with copious amounts of emo! Please enjoy and review.

* * *

Matthew didn't get back in until nearly seven in the morning. He sighed as he noticed there were some unpleasant stains on his shirt. Oh, well, it couldn't be helped. He'd have to do a load of laundry right away to get those out. When he got back up from the basement in clean clothes, Gil was awake and looking surly as she ate a piece of cantaloupe, stabbing it more than appeared to be necessary.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm _fine_," Gil said with a particularly violent stabbing of the fruit. She looked about as far from fine as one could get, but pushing the issue looked dangerous. At least from the cantaloupe's point of view. Matthew decided to give her some space until she looked less murderous. But the anger that seemed to have consumed Gil didn't let up at any point over the weekend or leading into the week. She either ignored him or met his questions with the fewest words possible. It was really worrying to Matthew.

After a few days of that behavior, it was starting to make Matthew angry. Any attempts he made to help Gil out were met with stony silence or bitingly sarcastic remarks and the act was getting old fast. Matthew was trying to ask Gil if there was anything in particular she wanted for lunch when things broke.

"Like _you_ care what I want," Gil had muttered under her breath. It was the last straw; Matthew had finally had enough. There was a loud _clang_ as he slammed a serving spoon down on the counter.

"For God's sake, Gil, would you stop being a brat and just tell me what the hell's wrong?"

Gil slammed down the book she was reading.

"Oh, gee, whatever makes you think something's wrong?" she cried out sarcastically.

"Would you cut the crap?" Matthew snapped in a rare show of anger. "You've been ignoring me for days. Just tell me what's wrong or I can't do anything about it!"

"You've _done_ just about enough," she growled. Matthew's confusion multiplied.

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It means what it means!"

"_That doesn't help me!_"

"Well then why don't you ask your _Ukrainian ho bag _for help!"

"What does Katyusha have to do with _anything?_ And_ don't call her that!_"

"_I'll call her whatever the hell I want! _It's a free country!"

"Well, that's a great use of your freedom right there, very mature of you."

"I'm not the one who started this fight!"

"And I'm not the stupidly stubborn one who _refuses to admit what's wrong!_"

"Maybe it's none of your business!"

"But apparently it's Katyusha's? I think that makes it at least _partly_ my business."

"Well, if you love her so much why don't you_ marry her_?"

"_That doesn't make any sense!_"

"Oh, wait, you can't marry her, 'cuz she _dumped you like a sack of potatoes!_"

"And that was still more pleasant than _dealing with you!_"

Gil stopped, looking like she'd been slapped in the face. The next thing he knew, a book was flying toward his face. Matthew barely managed to duck in time.

"_Fuck you, Matt!_" Gil shrieked, leaping to her feet. "_I hate you!_ I hope you die in a fire!"

When he straightened up, he saw Gil grabbing her purse before storming out of the apartment. Matthew paced angrily around the kitchen a few times before the weight of everything he'd said to Gil sunk in. He collapsed onto one of the kitchen chairs, feeling deflated and rotten. Yet he couldn't help but still feel angry, too. Gil had said some cruel things that had really hit home (not that he'd done much better) and Matthew still couldn't believe he'd said some of the things he'd told Gil. He felt like such an ass; he started pacing again.

He'd have to apologize, that was certain. But as Matthew tripped on the book Gil had hurled at him, he decided that that would have to come later when they'd both had a chance to cool down.

* * *

When the sun had set and Gil still wasn't back, Matthew started to worry again. Hoping that she'd remembered her phone when she'd stormed out, he dialed her number. He was hung up on almost immediately.

Well, that answered one question. Gil was _definitely_ still mad. The tone for a voice message sounded and Matthew suddenly found himself trying to fill empty space.

"Uh, Gil. Hi. It's Matthew," he paused, unsure of how to go about this. "I didn't meant what I said. Mostly. So, uh, call me back? I think we need to talk about this. … I'm really sorry, Gil."

He hung up awkwardly. Unsure of what else to do, Matthew turned on the TV for background noise and sat down on the couch. He'd been watching the news but not really absorbing anything for a while when his phone rang. The caller ID read "the amazing Gil." He picked up faster than he'd thought humanly possible.

"Gil?"

"No. It's Antonio."

Matthew swallowed uncomfortably. Her friend sounded pissed, and with good reason.

"Oh."

"Oh," Antonio agreed. Matthew swallowed again.

"Is she okay?"

"She's watching telenovelas with my mom and me and she _hates_ those things." Antonio's voice suddenly dropped several pitches. "_What did you do to her?_"

Matthew shivered and was very glad he wasn't facing him now. This was one scary seventeen-year-old.

"We... had a stupid fight."

"_About what?_"

Something about the tone of his voice prompted Matthew into answering truthfully. (And maybe he was hoping too that with Gil's friend's input, he could figure out what had happened.)

"She was mad at me so I asked her what I did wrong and things kind of...escalated."

"So you did something to make her upset? What?"

"I just said I don't know! I got home one day and she was angry!" Matthew wanted to facepalm when he realized what he'd just done. Was he seriously fighting with his teenage roommate's best friend? This was disturbing. He'd never known that he could be this immature before. Antonio remained silent for a few moments and Matthew wondered if he'd hung up.

"You got home and she was already mad?"

"Yes?"

"_Home from what?_"

Was this kid playing good cop/bad cop all by himself? _Successfully?_ It was really incredibly disturbing to Matthew.

"I was eating dinner with a friend," he admitted, hoping to end this conversation as quickly as possible (and yet it didn't enter his mind to simply hang up).

"A friend? Does Gil know this friend?"

"Not personally, but I told Gil about her," Matthew explained.

"_Ohhhh,_" Antonio said. "I think I know what happened."

He didn't elaborate and Matthew tentatively asked, "What do you think happened?"

"_You'd better figure it out on your own_," Antonio whispered cryptically before hanging up. Matthew stared blankly at his phone, feeling much like he'd just suffered through the Spanish Inquisition.

Okay, so he had a few things straightened out. One, Gil was mad at him for going out to dinner with a friend. Two, somehow Katyusha was involved because Gil had never reacted like this to anybody else he knew. Three... Gil hated Katyusha for some reason? Had they even met? Did they have anything in common?

Matthew was so confused. As it grew later and later, he eventually tried to get some sleep, but tossed and turned all night, trying to sort out what he knew and what Antonio had made him think about. He didn't make much progress.

* * *

By the time he'd woken up in the morning, Matthew had temporarily forgotten about what had happened the next day. It wasn't until he was getting breakfast ready that he was reminded harshly about their fight.

"Gil, what do you want for breakfast?" he called out. It was met with dead silence and Matthew groaned, quickly remembering every ugly word that had transpired the day before. He went to work feeling miserable with unsightly bags under his eyes and came home more exhausted than he had been in a long time. Something crunched under his foot when he stepped into his apartment.

It was an envelope, with "Matt" written in Gil's messy scrawl on the front. Heart pounding, he ripped it open and a key fell out. He ignored it and read the short note tucked inside.

"Took my stuff. I'll pay you back when I can."

When he looked up, he noticed that his apartment did seem a little emptier. A quick check of Gil's bedroom showed that all her things were gone. His heart sank as he took it all in. It was exactly what he'd wished for for the first few months that Gil had been staying with him: he had his apartment back to himself.

Somehow it didn't feel as good to have the place to himself as he had imagined it would.

* * *

The next few days passed in a weird blur as Matthew struggled with his feelings. It must have shown through, because as Matthew was taking a break at work—slumped over his desk—he felt someone sit down on it.

"Wow, Matthew, you look terrible," one of his officemates noted before poking his cheek with a pen. "I'd offer to give you a face lift, but you know that's not my specialty."

"Thanks, Yong Soo," he muttered back and pushed the pen away. He sat up from where he'd been slumped on his desk in an attempt to look normal. "And I'm fine, I'm just tired."

Yong Soo shrugged.

"You look like something's really been bothering you the last couple of days," he commented. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really."

"So it's lady trouble, huh?"

Matthew stared at him.

"Moping around, looking sad, heaving great sighs heavenward, all standard signs of lady trouble! It's like a scene straight out of a classic K-drama!" Yong Soo proclaimed. Oh, Lord, things were getting _bad_ if he resembled in any way a character from a soap opera. Matthew almost wanted to take up Yong Soo on his offer to listen to his problems, but explaining everything would be too complicated. And there was unfortunately only one person who already knew the details.

That was how Matthew found himself in Alfred's apartment building, knocking on his brother's door and feeling like he'd sunk to a new low.

"Matt!" Alfred bellowed cheerfully when he answered the door and tugged his brother into his apartment. "How are you? Thirsty? Hungry? Want some ice cream? I still have a lot left from last week!"

Matthew shuddered.

"N-no thanks," he answered, still caught in Alfred's arms.

"What _can_ I do for you, big bro?" Alfred asked, letting go of his brother and doing a little twirl. Matthew stared at Alfred in horror.

"Al, are you _high?_"

"High on love!"

Matthew decided that he'd rather not know what that meant, and sank down into one of the Alfred's kitchen chairs.

"I just..." he almost choked on the words. They came out in a rush so that he could get the humiliation over with as quickly as possible. "Ineedyouradvice."

Alfred grinned like a cat.

"_Whaaaat_ was that, Matt? I didn't _heeeeeear_ you. Did _you_ just say you need _my_ help?"

Matthew just stared, one eyebrow raised. Alfred pouted.

"Fine, be a jerk. What do you need my advice on? It's the teenager, isn't it?"

He nodded, wordlessly. Alfred nodded along with him and sat at the table.

"So what exactly is the problem this time?" he asked, fingers tented. Feeling like he was still making a mistake telling his brother, Matthew spilled the whole story. Alfred listened quietly.

"Well, isn't this a good thing?" Alfred questioned when he was done. "I mean, it's not like she could have stayed at your place forever. Maybe it's better that she's gone. And this solves your problem of feeling attracted to her. Maybe this is what's best for everyone."

"It probably is," Matthew mumbled. "But I feel so rotten."

Alfred nodded wisely.

"Well, you'll probably feel better after you can apologize to her face. It sounds like your fight was pretty nasty."

Alfred was probably right about that, Matthew reflected. But guilt from saying what he'd said wasn't the only thing eating away at his chest. The emptiness and loneliness he was feeling every day Gil was gone was what was bothering him the most. Hesitantly, he told Alfred this. His brother frowned and thought for a few minutes before speaking again.

"Matt, I think you need to talk to the teenager about how you feel. You obviously like her and I'd bet you my Superman collection she likes you back."

"I... don't think that's such a great idea," Matthew mumbled. "Even if she did like me that way—and I'm pretty sure she doesn't—it wouldn't work out."

"Why not?" Alfred asked. Matthew floundered for a moment before expressing the exact worries that had been plaguing him the last week.

"Well for one thing, she's _eighteen_. She'd practically a kid."

"Legally she's an adult," Alfred pointed out. "And she's been living apart from her guardians and trying to watch out for herself and an unborn baby for months. I think she's mentally an adult, too. Nothin' wrong with two adults being together."

Damn Alfred and his logic.

"The age difference is too big. It's creepy," he tried again.

"What, you're only like, what, ten years apart? Mom was five years older than Dad. And there have been _waaaay_ creepier age differences. Hugh Hefner was engaged to that one chick who was _sixty_ years younger than him! Compared to that, ten years is nothing! You're six times less creepy than Hugh Hefner!"

"Al, that doesn't make me feel any better about this."

"It should! This is some quality pep talk!" Alfred insisted. It became silent between the two as Matthew chewed over the worst problem that had been bothering him the most.

"So were those your only reasons?" Alfred asked. Matthew shook his head.

"Al, I've been giving her a place to stay and helping her out with her money problems. It seems really messed up to try and push a relationship when she depends on me like that. I would feel like I'm taking advantage of her. What if she felt she couldn't say no because she needs my help to get by? I don't want to be that kind of man."

"Well, she already left once when she owes you. Seems to me like she wouldn't have any qualms about doing it again."

"I guess that's true," Matthew frowned. "But it still feels wrong."

"Fine," Alfred huffed. "Ignore my amazing advice. That you came to me for."

"Thank you for your advice," Matthew added to placate Alfred. "I'm going to try to apologize to her again. But that's it."

"You are so boring. You don't have a romantic bone in your body!" Alfred accused. Matthew was tempted to argue about how there was _nothing_ romantic about this whole situation or imposing your awkward feelings on other people but he sensed that it would be futile. Alfred changed the subject, for once noticing other people's feelings in the room. They chatted for a while before Matthew went home, Alfred's words stuck in his head. He still felt like it was wrong to be in a relationship with Gil, but he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if they were. He tried to keep those thoughts out of his mind, though, and tried to focus on how he could reach Gil and apologize to her. That was all he was going to do.

* * *

A/N: So much abuse of italics. Also, couldn't find a place to mention this, but Korea is a plastic surgeon specializing in breast augmentations and lifts.

Also,

_Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!_


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

A/N Please enjoy and review. :)

* * *

"Gil. I think we need to talk."

Gil cringed and dropped her spoon back into her ice cream; the worst seven words she had ever heard from Antonio and Francis. Well, the word "Gil" was awesome. The rest of those words sucked.

"Talk about what?" she replied sullenly. "There's nothing to talk about."

"Really?" Francis said. "Because this whole moping-around-for-almost-a-full-week thing seems like something important to talk about."

Gil glared at them.

"I have not been _moping!_"

"The only times you get up are to get more ice cream or when you drop your spoon on the floor," Antonio pointed out. "_And_ you've been watching my mom's telenovelas!"

"It's classic break up depression," Francis declared.

"One, I'm not depressed. And two, it's not because of a break up. If I were depressed. Which I'm not!" Gil insisted. You had to be with someone to break up with them, after all. So obviously Gil wasn't depressed because of a break up. Or at all.

"This is because of that doctor, isn't it?" Francis asked. The ice cream in Gil's hands tumbled to the floor.

"What! No!"

Francis looked as if he were about to say something but Antonio cut him off.

"Gil, I know about the date he went on."

Gil choked. Francis looked intrigued.

"So I know why you're upset. And you need to stop crying into your ice cream and face your feelings."

"I have _NOT_ been crying!"

"You like him," Antonio insisted. "But you can't just get upset every time he has a life outside you, especially since you refuse to talk about—or acknowledge—your feelings. And you need to apologize."

Gil cringed again. Antonio could be creepily observant sometimes. And the worst part was that he had _no_ reservations about dressing you down on your issues. Francis patted her back.

"We only say this because you're obviously upset," he assured her. "And we're your friends. We want to see you happy, not crying over ice cream and bad acting. If you deal with your feelings for Matthew you'll feel better."

Gil glared at them.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I haven't been crying? Tears are for the weak! And I don't have feelings for Matt!"

They both sighed.

"We tried," Francis said and shook his head.

"Is that all you came here for? Bitc-yelling at me?" Gil sulked. "And here I thought we were going to hang out."

"We're going to do that, too!" Antonio said. "But first we needed to talk to you."

"Yeah, well, let's skip to the hanging out part," Gil suggested testily. Francis and Antonio must have decided that trying to convince her that she had feelings for Matt was moot, because they nodded and the conversation was dropped.

(And she didn't need them to tell her how she felt. Her feelings had become almost impossible to repress when Matt had called her and she'd listened to his apology voicemail. But Gil kept it up, because she knew it was useless to bother with those feelings when Matt didn't feel the same.)

* * *

Gil sighed and poked at the plate of churros Mrs. Fernández had made for her son and his friends. The ice cream and food she'd been eating for the last week she'd been crashing at Antonio's was delicious, but she hadn't been able to enjoy a bite of it. Her stupid jerkass of a brain refused to stop replaying the fight she'd had with Matt. And when it did take a break from that, it conjured up images of all the dates Matt must be taking his Ukrainian on now that Gil was out of the way.

It was making her miserable.

She tried to take her mind off Matt as she and her friends settled into Antonio's room, watching some movie streaming on Netflix while his family went out. After the confrontation earlier, they'd come to an unspoken agreement to try to enjoy themselves and forget about their various problems. The plate of churros were slowly eaten amongst the three, but even chocolate and sugary bread couldn't improve Gil's mood. Francis and Antonio kept sending each other weird looks and checking their phones for the time. Okay, that was weird. And on top of that, she was horribly uncomfortable because the baby was moving a lot more than normal. It was almost as if it, too, were in on whatever Francis and Antonio were planning. Maybe they were planning a really great prank? It'd been a while since they'll pulled one off. Gil tried to soothe the baby by rubbing her stomach; that usually worked but not this time.

The group of friends was almost at the end of the movie when the doorbell rang. Francis leapt to his feet, looking excited.

"Oh, good! The pizza's here!" Francis exclaimed. Gil raised an eyebrow.

"Why did you order pizza? I thought you hated it. You always complain about how it's too greasy and it messes up your skin."

The guys exchanged another look.

"Gil, why don't you go get it?" Antonio suggested. "We got the food the last time."

"What! That's not fair!" Gil cried out. "I can barely get up on my own now! Why does the eight-month-pregnant one have to go all the way downstairs?"

Francis and Antonio grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet despite her protests.

"Just go answer the door!" they chorused and gave her a hearty shove toward the stairs. Gil almost stumbled, but managed to right herself and clutching the banister, made her way down the stairs. She was about to open the door when she realized she didn't have any money.

"You morons didn't even give me my wallet!" she shouted, hoping it was loud enough to be heard upstairs.

"It's not a problem!" Antonio yelled back.

"Open the door!" Francis added. Gil shuddered and looked at the door with apprehension.

"Oh, God, this feels like the intro to a porno," she muttered to herself as she gave in and opened the door. The sooner she fell for their prank the sooner she could start planning her revenge.

Except Matt was behind the door.

Gil slammed it shut again, heart pounding wildly. Antonio and Francis were peeking from upstairs and she glared at them.

"What the hell's wrong with you idiots?" she squawked indignantly. Instead of answering, they charged and Gil tried to run. Thirty-something pounds of baby weight slowed her down and they caught her quickly.

"You've been miserable all week!" Antonio tried to reason.

"Just talk to him! You really need to!" Francis added as they dragged her toward the door. Gil dug in her heels, swore, and tried to punch them.

"Let go of me you assholes!" she wailed before they shoved her out the front door and shut the door behind her. Gil reached out for the doorknob before she heard the door lock loudly. Her hand, still outstretched toward her salvation, twitched.

"Gil?" Matt called softly. Gil tensed; she couldn't face this.

"Leave me alone," she said quietly.

"Okay, Gil, I will. But first I just want you to know how sorry I am about what I said to you. And I'm not sure what I did to make you upset in the first place, but I'm sorry about that too."

Gil felt her resolve not to turn around start to crumble. Dammit, he sounded so miserable! And she really did feel bad about blowing up at him. Especially since it wasn't his fault she'd gotten upset. He hadn't really done anything wrong.

"I know. I heard your message. And... I'm sorry, too," she replied. "I didn't mean to insult you. And stuff."

Matt chuckled.

"I'm glad."

He didn't say anything else and Gil wasn't sure what to do.

"Me, too," she ended up saying.

"I'm...going to go now," Matt said. Gil nodded. She heard his footsteps walking away and it felt as if her chest were tightening, so many things that she wanted to say swirling in her mind.

"Wait, don't go! I was just jealous!" cried out a tinny voice softly.

What?

"What?" Matt asked, his footsteps stopping. Gil looked next to the front door, noticing the window. The window that was open. The window that Antonio and Francis were peeking out of and imitating her through. She stared at the open window in horror while the sound of Matt walked back toward her got louder and louder as he drew closer. Her face burned and she cringed as Matt's footsteps stopped. Oh, she was going to _murder_ her idiot friends when she got back inside. As painfully as she could.

"Did you say something, Gil?"

It would have been so easy to say "no" and let him go on his way. He'd walk away and they would never see each other again and life would be so much easier for Gil. Probably for Matt, too. It was in everyone's best interest that she keep her mouth shut. But she didn't want Matt to walk away thinking he'd done wrong by her; he'd been such a good friend to him she found she couldn't do it. Instead, she sent her most withering glare at the open window, gritted her teeth, and spoke.

"I said I was jealous. Apparently. You spent the whole night on that date with what's-her-face and I was mad that you were ignoring me. So don't feel bad about what happened, 'cuz it was my fault. I was being stupid. You didn't do anything wrong."

Matt was quiet for a moment and Gil felt her pride (or at least what was left of it) shriveling like a slug in salt.

"I didn't stay out all night with Katyusha," Matt said. Gil whipped around in surprise. "I had to spend the whole night with Alfred because he was being a _moron_."

"What'd he do?" Gil asked, curiosity proving too tempting. She pushed aside the intense relief swarming her system that he hadn't spend the night with her!

"He saw Ivan and Katyusha together and didn't know they were siblings so he thought she was his girlfriend and chose that moment to finally admit to himself that he likes Ivan. He went home to binge on ice cream, vodka, and soap operas and drunk dialed multiple people, including me while I was out and I had to go make sure he didn't drown in his own vomit all night. He even threw up on me. I had to do laundry the minute I got home."

Gil grimaced. She'd been _there_ before.

"Gross. Does he know they're brother and sister now?"

"Yeah, he found out after he drunk dialed Ivan. And drunkenly spilled all his feelings. I was doing damage control all night."

"Wow, that sounds really annoying," Gil said, so caught up in the story that she'd forgotten what an awkward moment they were having.

"It was," Matt agreed.

"So how'd Braginsky react?" Gil had to know.

"They're together now."

"Cool."

The lull in the conversation reminded Gil what they'd been talking about before and she flushed. _This_ was what she'd been so upset over? She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Matt coughed.

"So that's what happened," he summarized. "And, uh, it wasn't a date. She's actually getting married soon. We just talked."

Gil nodded, unsure of what to say.

"I see," she tried. The lull stretched on and in at attempt to relieve some of the discomfort of the situation, added, "How have you been?"

"Not that great," he admitted. "I was pretty worried about you."

Gil's heart did a back flip. And it had still been beating pretty quickly during the whole conversation. She was suddenly very grateful for how dark it was; hopefully Matt couldn't see her face turning bright red.

"I'm sorry," Gil said.

"You don't have to apologize. It's not your fault."

"It kinda is," she pointed out. Matt smiled.

"Well, maybe a little," he agreed teasingly. Gil let out a laugh. God, it was like things between them were normal again. It was wonderful and disappointing all at the same time.

"Uh, how have _you_ been?" Matt asked.

"Mostly fine. Ish," she lied.

"That's good," Matt said before reaching into his pocket and pressing whatever he'd taken out into Gil's hand. She blinked at the item; it was the key she'd given back to him.

"It's in case you ever need a place to stay again," Matt clarified, looking uncomfortable, but still with a smile on his face. It made that awful feeling she'd been trying so hard to deny well up all over again and Gil didn't even realize she was moving before she found herself with her arms wound around Matt, hugging him tightly. She froze when she realized what she'd done and would have pulled away if Matt hadn't wrapped his arms around her and pulled her even closer.

Gil felt as if she were about to melt; Matt's embrace had a warmth and comforting sense that she'd never experienced before. She felt safe and warm, and at the same time electrified and excited. She knew she was blushing again and her knees had gone weak in some horrible cliché. The realization burst through all of her barriers at once and without mercy.

"_I might be in love with this man._"

It was a realization that was both terrifying and wonderful. Before Gil could sink into these thoughts, the tenderness of the moment was suddenly and irrevocably ruined by the assholes she called her friends.

"Good work, Gil! Now_ kiss him!" _

She looked over and saw Antonio and Francis hanging out the window, gesturing wildly at her. They whisper-yelled, loud enough for her to hear, but not loud enough for Matt to hear. The fact that he apparently hadn't heard didn't stop her face from burning as she flipped them off angrily.

"_Fuck off!_"

Matt drew back, looking hurt.

"Not you! I meant..." But her friends had ducked back inside where no one could see them. "I didn't mean you."

He was still looking at her oddly.

"Hey, so, you know what? I'm gonna take you up on that offer to stay with you! Antonio's family is nice, but he has, like, four brothers and sisters. Too many people in one house! Yeah, I need some space!" she blustered, trying to cover up. Matt just smiled.

"Okay. That sounds good."

"Lemme just get my stuff," Gil said before squirming her way out of the hug and running back inside. Antonio and Francis must have unlocked the door while she was talking to Matt because it opened easily and she hurried upstairs to gather up her things. (She would have to take a rain check on murdering them; she felt too happy to do it now like she'd wanted to). Matt was waiting by the front door by the time she'd shoved all her crap into her duffel bag and stopped at the bathroom (being pregnant really sucked sometimes). He looked oddly pale and seemed to be shivering just a little.

"Matt, are you okay?"

"Yes," he said with a strained smile. "I'm fine." He took the bag from Gil and they walked toward his car.

"You have very loyal friends, Gil. Very... _creative_ friends."

"Aren't they great?" Gil said cheerily. She had to give them a little bit of credit: they'd managed to get her and Matt to make up and have things go back to normal.

Of course, it was also their fault she'd come to the realization that she loved a man she had no chance with.

On second thought, her friends really were assholes. She needed new ones.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

A/N: If you're squeamish, you might want to be careful with this chapter, as it contains mild (and unnecessary!) graphic descriptions of childbirth. Because I can. I mean, for dramatic effect.

Please enjoy and review.

* * *

Things became blissfully normal once again over the next two weeks. Well, as normal as things got between Matthew and Gil. Now that high school was over and done with, Gil spent her days relaxing as she entered her ninth month of pregnancy and Matthew kept up his work schedule, making sure to leave his workload light on the days leading up to Gil's due date.

There was a blip in the normal radar when Matthew got home from work on his birthday. He entered the apartment and was surprised to see that the whole place—usually mildly messy as per his usual habit of putting off cleaning—was spotless. A pile of washed, folded, ironed, laundry sat innocently on the couch. The air smelled like vanilla and Matthew dropped his briefcase in surprise. The noise drew Gil from here she was, in the kitchen.

"Dangit! You're back early," she scowled, shaking a serving spoon at him angrily.

"What is this?" he asked, confused. Gil flushed.

"Well, you didn't tell me your birthday was coming up so I didn't have time to do anything better!" she said. "You're lucky I'm awesome enough to do all this!"

Matthew bit his lip to keep from grinning stupidly. This was such a nice surprise. And, well, it was probably silly to think this way, but coming home to see Gil waiting happily for him to come home with all the chores done felt like coming home to a loving, 1950's wife. Although he was a progressive guy; he'd support any role his wife felt like taking up. That didn't stop him from feeling happy at seeing the woman he had feelings for acting in a way that might suggest she felt the same way. It should have probably been more worrying to Matthew that imagining Gil in the capacity of his wife was so easy and made him this happy, but he'd been finding it harder and harder to care about the part of their relationship that was unorthodox and potentially creepy.

"How'd you know it's my birthday?" he couldn't help asking. Matthew was certain he'd never told her and it wasn't the type of thing he marked on his calendar so she couldn't have seen it there.

"I have my ways," Gil said mysteriously. Matthew had the feeling he might not want to know what those ways were.

He just smiled and said, "Thank you", noticing something had changed about the air between them.

"...Is something burning?"

"THE CAKE!" Gil yelped before rushing back into the kitchen. Luckily, the cake was still very much salvageable and delicious. The decorations were a little sloppy, but "Happy Birthday" was still legible on the top. It was probably one of the most delicious cakes Matthew had ever tasted.

He could get used to this.

* * *

Things continued to stay normal until almost two weeks later at work, when Matthew's phone rang in the middle of his lunch break. The caller ID read "the amazing Gil." She had never called him during work, so he assumed it was an emergency and answered.

"Are you okay?" he asked her right away.

"Mostly, except I am pretty sure I just started having contractions," she answered in a slightly panicky voice. "I was feeling crampy and pained since, like, three in the morning and just now I'm pretty sure I started having real contractions. So, when should I go to the hospital?"

Matthew cast a quick look at his watch and his schedule for the day.

"I should be back in a few hours, so just time your contractions and if they get to be five minutes apart before I get back—and they shouldn't—call me. Until then, you should be fine. When the contractions are five minutes apart we'll go to the hospital."

"'We'?" Gil repeated in confusion. It occurred to Matthew at that moment that they had never really discussed the plan of action for when Gil went into labor. He had assumed that Yao had already talked it over with her. They'd never discussed who was going to be there and he couldn't recall Gil ever telling him about choosing a birthing coach. Or if she even wanted one. Maybe it had been too presumptuous of him to have assumed he'd be there. It had never crossed his mind otherwise.

"Do you not want me there?" he asked.

"Nooo," she said slowly. "It's not that. It would actually be really awesome if you were there because I have no idea what to do. I just didn't think you'd _want_ to be there. Don't you have work?"

"Not very much work," Matthew admitted and looked at his schedule again. Gil's due date was only a few days away, so his workload was still light. He'd be able to manage. "Nothing that can't be rearranged."

Gil remained quiet on her line.

"Okay then," she finally said. "If you're really sure. Sorry for calling during work."

"It's fine," he assured her before saying "Good bye" and hanging up.

* * *

True to Matthew's prediction, when he got home a few hours later, Gil's contractions weren't five minutes apart yet. They were just breaking eight minutes as Gil informed him, and she looked miserable as she typed furiously on his computer.

"I'm Googling childbirth," she answered when he asked her what she was doing. "And don't you dare say 'I told you you should have taken that childbirth class I told you about at the hospital'."

"I won't," Matthew promised. He could, (and did) however, think it before joining Gil at the computer in time for another contraction. He laid a hand on her stomach to feel the contractions and make sure things were progressing normally. Gil was biting her lip, he noticed, and holding her breath as she waited out the pain.

"Breathe," he reminded her. "And don't bite your lip."

She let out a few ragged breaths and stopped biting her lip, which had turned an angry red.

"This hurts soooo muuuuuuch," she moaned when the contraction finished and she'd caught her breath back. "When do I get to go to the hospital and get pain meds?"

"We'll go to the hospital when the contractions are five minutes apart and you can't have an epidural until you're dilated four centimeters."

"Seriously?" she whined. "How dilated am I now?"

"How far apart are the contractions?"

Gil checked her phone.

"Seven minutes."

"Probably just under two centimeters."

"And how many centimeters before it's all over?"

"Ten."

Gil groaned.

"I'm only one-fifth the way there? Why?" she wailed.

"At least you're only halfway to having the epidural?" Matthew tried, hoping that that was even a little comforting. Gil didn't seem to have heard him; she had blushed and suddenly smacked Matthew's hand, which he just then realized had been resting on her stomach the entire time.

"Sorry," he said instinctively. A flush was making its way onto his own face at the realization that he'd been touching her so closely. Gil was avoiding his eyes when she went back to looking at whatever she was looking at on the computer. Matthew left her alone to get started on dinner. They had plenty of time to eat before the time between contractions shrunk to five minutes. The drive was fairly short and soon enough, Gil and Matthew were set up in a room at the local hospital, Gil now in a hospital dressing gown. They were met there by Yao, who quickly determined that Gil was two and a half centimeters dilated before he left them to wait for her labor to continue to progress.

"I'm bored," Gil declared soon after the hospital TV proved to have channels in only the single digit range, and none of them particularly exciting.

"Want to play a board game?" Matthew offered. After some searching through the hospital, he managed to find a copy of Risk which he set up next to the Gil's bed.

"I call Prussia!" she called out when they picked their starting bases.

"I don't think they have Prussia on this board," Matthew noted as he started putting his army pieces on Canada. Gil frowned.

"_Damn_. Uh, darn. Well, I'll just stick to the spot where Prussia used to be!"

Even through the frequent contractions that were starting to increase in intensity, Gil proved to be a formidable opponent. Matthew had to struggle to keep her troops from closing in on his, and it was largely due to luck that Canadian soldiers conquered the board over the several hours the game lasted.

"No fair, I have a handicap," Gil insisted as he took her last pieces off the board. As if to punctuate her words, she let out a cry as another contraction hit. Feeling more than a little useless, Matthew tried to coach her through the breathing process.

"Gaahh, how much longer until I can have the spinal block?" Gil whined when the latest contraction let up.

"You still have another centimeter to go," Matthew reminded her. Gil scowled, looking horribly uncomfortable.

"You can always take a hot shower," he suggested. "My patients usually find that to be pretty helpful."

Gil looked like she doubted the effectiveness of a shower, but let Matthew help her up and to the tiny bathroom. She looked a lot better when she exited the shower some time later; Matthew was glad to see it.

* * *

The sun had already long gone down when Yao came for another one of the routine checks he'd been performing on Gil since they'd arrived. Matthew looked away awkwardly while Gil's dilation was measured.

"You're just up to four centimeters," Yao informed her. "You may have an epidural now if you'd like."

"_YES!_" Gil cheered and pumped a fist in the air. "Bring on the drugs!"

"The epidural can make labor last longer," Yao warned.

"That is more than okay with me," Gil said.

The spinal block was supplied by a kindly nurse in hot pink scrubs and Matthew was relieved to see that Gil seemed to be doing much better now that the pain was lessened. They chatted as they set up the Risk board for another game (which Gil won) but the process took a turn for the unfortunate side when Yao discovered that several hours later, Gil had only dilated another centimeter and a half. Gil looked confused at the update, but Matthew was all too familiar with what was happening.

"Your labor is progressing too slowly," Yao said before proceeding to explain the options Gil had. "We can of course give you drugs to speed up the labor process, in addition to breaking the amniotic sac. And if you still don't progress after that, we'll have to consider a Caesarian."

Gil looked horrified at the prospect. Matthew tried to reassure her that she would most likely be fine and _not_ need a C-section as Yao went off to procure the tools to break her amniotic sac. It was strange and very different to be on the other end of the childbirth process, Matthew noticed, as Yao returned with an amniohook and a nurse carrying a stack of towels. The tools seemed much more intimidating when they were about to be used on someone you cared deeply about than when you had them in your hands. Gil's face took on a look of abject terror at the sight of the amniohook.

"It looks worse than it feels," Matthew told her. "It's not supposed to hurt."

"That is _not_ reassuring," Gil insisted. He tried to be soothing by taking her hand and letting her squeeze it while Yao went about breaking the membranes surrounding the baby. It was over fairly quickly, and Gil seemed relieved that Matthew had been right about it not hurting when the messy process was all over.

"That was easily the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life," Gil remarked hollowly as Yao and the nurse left. "I don't know how you do this every day."

"Birth can be pretty disgusting," Matthew agreed.

Thankfully, breaking the amniotic sac seemed to do the trick and Gil's labor sped up to a more normal rate. Drugs and surgery were forgone, although it was still past midnight when she was finally dilated enough to start pushing. By that time, the slowness of her labor had led to the epidural wearing off prematurely and it was now far too late to administer another. Gil was looking more and more nervous as everything was set up for the final stages of labor. Matthew took her hand again. She squeezed back immediately and didn't let go as Yao instructed her to start pushing with the contractions.

Matthew winced; Gil had a pretty strong grip. He suddenly had a lot more sympathy for the fathers he regularly saw in the delivery room. His hand felt like it was being crushed as the minutes dragged on and Gil struggled to push.

One sweaty, exhausting, and painful hour later, Yao announced that the baby was finally crowning. Gil looked like she was at the end of her rope physically and mentally and Matthew squeezed her hand again, wishing there was something better he could do to get her through this.

"It's okay, Gil," he told her, scrambling for words that would help, even a little bit. "You're almost done, all right? Just a little while longer. You can do this."

Gil gave a tiny, jerking nod, as if she were too afraid to use up any more energy on something that wasn't birth or breathing. Her grip on Matthew's hand tightened as Yao coached her through the last few minutes of labor. Gil's hand went slack in Matthew's as the last push finally brought the baby into the world.

* * *

A/N: The _things_ I had to research for this chapter. I hope no one ever looks at my Google search history.

(Alfred told Gil about Matthew's birthday.)


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

A/N: Please enjoy and review. :)

* * *

"It's a boy!" Yao announced cheerfully before clamping the umbilical cord and handing the baby off to the nurse to have its nose cleared of mucus, be weighed, and cleaned up. A few moments after his nasal cavity was cleared, the baby began to cry. Relief swept over Matthew at the sound and even through her exhaustion, Gil looked relieved, too. She was breathing heavily as she watched the doctor and nurses wipe the blood and fluids off the baby before he was swaddled in a blanket and a little hat was wrapped snugly around his head.

Gil was trembling with fatigue when the nurse brought over the baby to her and so Matthew supported her, helping her hold her son close. The baby had a tuft of dark hair that was matted down under the yarn of the hat but with one errant lock curling out from under the hat and ruddy, chubby face. A little smile was on Gil's face as she reached out to brush her finger against a tiny cheek. He snuffled and blinked sleepily at her with eyes so blue they almost looked violet.

"Hi," she whispered, looking at her baby in wonderment. "Hi, Freddie."

He blinked once, twice, before closing his eyes again and falling asleep.

"Oh, Matt, grab my phone!" she cried out softly, trying not to jostle her son. "I want to make him my screensaver, this is so awesome!"

Matthew found her phone and she held her baby closer and grinned happily while he took the picture. The nurse took the baby back so that the final stages of labor could progress. Gil took that time to send the picture to her friends while Matthew stepped back so that Yao could finish his job.

Once the labor was finally over, Matthew left the hospital room to give Gil some privacy as the nurse helped her clean up and try to see if the baby felt like eating. The corridors were empty and his own exhaustion was finally starting to set in; for the first time in hours, he checked his watch. It was past 2:00 AM. Matthew almost fell asleep leaning against the wall outside Gil's room until the nurse exited, wheeling a portable crib with the baby fast asleep in it.

"You can go back in, Mr. Beilschmidt," she informed him. "Fathers have unlimited access during the hospital stay, so you don't have to worry about visiting hours. They're posted on the wall if you want to know when you or your wife's family can drop by and see the baby. I'm taking him to the nursery now. Any time you'd like, he can be brought back to the room."

Matthew was too tired to correct her many mistakes (not to mention it would've been hell to try to explain) so he simply nodded before going back inside the room. Gil was curled up in the bed and Matthew thought she was asleep until he sat down in the chair he'd been occupying next to Gil's bed. She cracked an eye open and mumbled, "Hey."

"Hey," he repeated. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired," she said before sitting up. She winced and doubled over. "And _sore_."

"That's pretty normal," Matthew noted. For a few moments, the two sat in relative silence. Matthew was certain Gil was about to go back to sleep when she looked straight at him.

"Uh, Matt? I just wanted to thank you again. For everything. I don't know where I'd be right now if it wasn't for you."

Matthew felt his face heat up. Gil never talked to him like this; she must have shed some inhibitions from spending the last twenty-four hours or so in labor without any sleeping breaks.

"You don't have to say that," he mumbled uncomfortably.

"I really am grateful," she tried to say, cut off by her own yawning. Matthew tried not to smile at how cute that looked.

"You need to go to sleep," he told her before pressing down lightly on her shoulder. Gil relented and laid back down, her eyelids starting to droop almost immediately. Matthew noticed that her blanket was all mussed up; he reached across her to straighten it out when he felt Gil's hands trace the side of his face gently.

"You're too nice for your own good," she mumbled sleepily before Matthew suddenly felt her lips press against his. Matthew's eyes flew open in shock and he froze, leaning over Gil's bed as she kissed him. At a complete loss of what to do, Matthew remained stuck in the "freeze" reaction until he felt her hands and lips slip away from his face.

Gil was fast asleep.

Matthew still couldn't move until a few moments later, when his face erupted in a deep blush and he sat back into his chair. His heart was pounding and he stared up at the ceiling, unsure of what to do. His fingers unconsciously went to his tingling lips. Jeez, he was acting like a schoolgirl after her first kiss. He shook those thoughts from his head; Gil was tired, she didn't know what she was doing, and she'd probably have completely forgotten the kiss ever happened when she woke up. And it would be better that way. Matthew should have been relieved thinking that.

He wasn't.

He leaned further back into his chair; the late hour finally got to him and even though his mind was still buzzing uncomfortably, he soon joined Gil in sleep.

* * *

Gil woke up slowly, things swimming into her awareness slowly. For one thing, she was still very much sore and achy just about everywhere. And there were gentle scratching and tapping noises in the room. She cracked her eyes open, noticing that the room was full of light now. The clock on the wall showed it was past noon.

She sat up and noticed that Matt wasn't sitting in the chair next to her like he had been last night. Or this morning. Or whatever time it was that she'd apparently lost her mind for a minute and kissed him. Her face erupted in a deep blush. Oh, God, she'd messed everything up between her and Matt, hadn't she? Everything would have been fine if she hadn't done that and let things be. Gil hoped desperately that maybe Matt had been at least half as tired as she'd been when she finally passed out asleep and had maybe forgotten about the whole thing. _She_ sure as hell wasn't going to bring it up. Hoping that things would somehow work out, she looked over on the other side of the room to see if maybe Matt had just moved. There was a blond sitting in her room, but it wasn't Matt; it was a familiar musclehead.

And was he _studying?_

"Seriously, West?" she said and he turned around, looking surprised. "Are you doing _homework?_ In the hospital?"

A light pink rose in his cheeks and he closed his textbook and shoved his calculator out of the way.

"I wasn't sure if you'd be awake and I wanted to make sure I didn't waste any time on this assignment," he replied stiffly. "And you know I don't like that nickname."

"Psht, you are such a dork," Gil commented with a roll of her eyes, pointedly ignoring the comment about his nickname. She would use that name till the day she died. West sighed like an old man and changed the subject.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Mostly fine," she answered before straightening up even more. "Did you get a chance to see Freddie yet? Isn't he the cutest? As is to be expected of my awesome genes."

West shook his head.

"I came straight here."

Gil gasped dramatically and slammed her hand down on the nurse call button. She gushed happily about how cute her son was while he was brought to her room. Freddie was still sleeping when he arrived and West looked stricken as she placed the baby into his arms. He sat more stiffly than Gil had even seen her brother and his unease must have rubbed off on Freddie, who began to whine and stir. West looked terrified at the prospect of a crying baby and Gil had to hold back on laughing at his unease.

"Don't hold him like that, support his neck!" she instructed West, finally taking pity on him and telling him what to do. He moved into a slightly less uncomfortable-looking position to hold the baby. "And stop making that face! You're scaring your poor little nephew!"

West tried to smile at Freddie, who stopped fussing and blinked back at him for a few seconds before going back to sleep. Her son looked dwarfed by her big, scary, muscled little brother, but it was sweet to see a tough-looking guy cuddling such a tiny baby. Gil barely restrained her squeal of "Cute!" at the sight. She did snatch up her phone from the bedside table and sneak in a photo.

And there was an unpleasant feeling that she'd been trying to ignore, like a little seed of discomfort as she couldn't help but notice now that he was cleaned up. Freddie had _so many_ of _his_ features. There was even the tiniest hint of the soft, downy hair on his head starting to curl upward. The similarities made her whole body _ache_ and she felt like a failure of a mother already for being bothered by it at all. Hadn't she promised him that she was going to do better than that? So far, she didn't feel as if she was.

"He's a very cute baby," West remarked before he handed him back to Gil. She moved the bed so that she could easily sit and cradle her Freddie in her arms, mentally vowing to try harder even though it hurt and it was so much more difficult than she'd even thought it would be. She had to.

"You went with Frederick for his name?" Ludwig said, blessedly interrupting her morbid thoughts with something more pleasant. Bless West.

"My baby needed an awesome name and there was nobody more awesome than Uncle Fritz," Gil insisted. West nodded, probably in agreement, and then shifted nervously.

"Speaking of Uncle Fritz," he began, "I found something in Opa's office." He left Gil's bedside to search through his satchel and removed a few papers. He spread them on the tray that stretched over Gil's bed and she saw that they were photocopies.

"It's Uncle Fritz' will," West explained. "He left us both a little bit of money that we're supposed to get once we're eighteen. Opa didn't know where you were, so he held onto your part but he's having it transferred over to your bank account. This is for you, too." West set a little card on top of the other papers. Gil saw that it was an insurance card and the sudden flood of information left her staring at it in a stupor.

"You're still covered under Opa's insurance. He told me to give that to you."

"HE KNOWS?" Gil yelped, suddenly pulled out of confusion. Her yelling accidentally woke Freddie, who burst into tears. It was a few moments before she was able to calm him down and return him to the portable crib he'd been brought to her room in so she could cross her arms and glare at her brother for revealing her secret to their grandfather. She couldn't imagine how else he'd found out. (Although she did have to wonder why the old man bothered with the insurance. Probably didn't want an outstanding debt on the Beilschmidt name.)

"He found out by accident," West tried to explain. "It was the baby shower. Target sends their customers customized coupons and after I bought your gift they sent us some for more baby-related things. Opa knew they weren't for him, or me, and he figured it out on his own. I'm sorry."

"You should be," Gil sulked. The two siblings sat in a tense silence for a few minutes before Gil spoke up again, "But I forgive you."

West nodded and the tension dipped a little.

"So how much did he leave me?" Gil asked, trying to change the subject. West pointed to a highlighted number.

"I see," she said as she read the number. "West, darling dearest brother of mine, could you grab me the laptop in that briefcase and my checkbook? It's in my purse."

* * *

Visitors dropped by pretty much the entirety of the day that was open to visitors. Doctors and nurses who knew Matthew dropped in to offer their congratulations (he futilely tried to explain that Gil was a friend to them to little to no avail) and Gil's friends and their families swarmed on the hospital room, too. It was mostly an awkward day; Matthew didn't really know any of Gil's friends beyond that one introduction he'd gotten the time they'd come to his place to pick Gil up, which made things uncomfortable for him.

Matthew also couldn't help but wonder throughout the day if Gil really had forgotten about the kiss. She seemed to be avoiding looking at his eyes, and sometimes he would catch her flushing. He wasn't sure if that was her remembering, or something else entirely. And he wasn't sure himself which he was hoping it was.

When visiting hours were over and the baby had been taken back to the nursery, Matthew was incredibly grateful. It was the first moment of peace either of them had had during the day. He was enjoying the silence when Gil piped up.

"Hey, Matt, this is for you."

She was holding out a slip of paper. Matthew accepted a random paper and found that it was a check. One written for all the money left that Gil owed him.

"Sorry, but I kinda checked your computer to find out how much I owe you. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," he responded automatically before asking, "Where did you get the money?"

Gil shifted.

"My brother," she admitted. "Well, not _from_ him, exactly. I didn't know my Uncle Fritz left me money when he died. My brother was the one who found out and gave it to me. So yeah, don't cash that thing yet. I'm not sure how long it'll take before the money transfers to my bank account. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough! I am now debt-free!" She cheered the last part and smiled broadly at Matthew as the last of his inhibitions were stripped away by the knowledge that she didn't owe him anything anymore. She seemed to realize she'd finally looked him in the eye for the first time that day and started to blush and Matthew was struck in that moment by the intense desire to _know_. He _needed_ to be sure, whether the outcome was good or bad, what that kiss had meant.

"Gil," he began. "I think we need to talk about what happened last night."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

A/N: The final chapter! I was afraid I'd never get to this point for a while.

I have one little note based on something an anonymous reviewer left that I didn't express very well in the written chapters. The only things we know about Gil's grandfather come from _her_ perspective, which is highly biased. Her opinions on her grandfather aren't 100% in line with the truth, even if she believes that they are. Some of the things she says/believes about him just aren't very accurate. She is not a reliable narrator.

Anyway, please enjoy and review!

* * *

"Gil, I think we need to talk about what happened last night," Matthew said, then fell silent. He wasn't really sure what to say next; he hadn't really planned this very well. "Um, well, I guess it was actually this morning."

Gil looked mortified for a split second before her face went blank.

"Did something happen this morning?" she said, obviously trying to lie. After six months of living together, he could tell right away. "I can't remember."

"I think you do, you haven't looked at me once all day and every time you do, you start blushing," Matthew pointed out rather directly. There was really no point in beating around the bush at this point. As if to prove his point, her face turned pink.

"I do _not_ blush!" she insisted. He almost replied to that, before Matthew remembered that he had something important he was supposed to be talking to Gil about.

"Why did you kiss me?" he asked bluntly. Gil made a choking sound and her blush went from pink to fuchsia. She looked away before she spoke.

"Do we really have to talk about this?" she groaned miserably.

"Yes," Matthew replied uncomfortably. Maybe it was selfish of him to bother her like this, but he couldn't leave it alone.

"Why?" Gil whined. "It... was an accident."

Matthew almost winced; that was what he'd been afraid of. Feeling like a lead weight was sinking down into his chest, he looked away, too. He was just about to let the matter go, feelind stupid and disappointed, but Gil kept talking, her hands twitching and flailing as her words grew more frantic.

"I was tired, you know. I wasn't thinking straight. I didn't mean it."

"Oka—" Matthew tried to say, the leaden feeling spreading to his arms and legs, but she didn't stop.

"So don't think anything of it. Total accident, didn't mean anything, forget it ever happ—"

He cut her off by grasping her hand lightly. She looked as surprised as he felt for a moment; he hadn't intended to grab her hand. Then, Gil's face darkened even further (he'd never known that color was achievable by the human skin before) and she tried to wrestle her hand away from his.

"Stop _doing_ that! Stop acting like you care and confusing the hell out of me!"

"I'm sorry."

"Well, if you're sorry than don't do it!" Gil snapped before yanking her hand out of his grip. She still looked awfully flustered and Matthew decided that it was now or never. He'd already set himself up for failure; might as well go in with no regrets. At least if she flat-out rejected him he would never have to wonder. And maybe he could move on.

"Um, I do care," Matthew said quietly. "Probably more than is healthy. Or appropriate. And, well, I don't want to forget what happened."

Gil gaped at him in a way that he _really_ hoped was a good sign.

"I like you," he added pathetically.

"Like a friend?" Gil supplied suspiciously. Matthew shook his head.

"Like more than a friend." And then, so she couldn't possibly mistake his words, "Like romantically."

She was making a strange face that Matthew couldn't read and looked down at her hands. Unaware, he was holding his breath as he waited for her answer.

"You... can't mean that."

A flare of annoyance rose in Matthew and he let out that breath in a huff.

"Of course I do!" he said testily. "I'm a grown man, I can tell my own feelings."

Gil looked up, looking a little surprised at his reaction.

"I just wanted to make sure you weren't messing with me!" she defended herself.

"I would never do that," Matthew said.

"Well, _excuse me_ for being a little wary of dudes at the moment."

"Right," Matthew cringed. "Sorry."

An uncomfortable silence stretched between the two. Matthew was contemplating saying something when Gil broke the silence with what sounded like a hopeful tone.

"So... you really like me?"

He nodded, his breath caught in his throat. It was the moment of truth.

"Uh, that's awesome. 'Cause... I-I kinda like you, too. A lot. Maybe."

Matthew was frozen in disbelief for a few moments before he could speak again.

"Really?" he said stupidly when he could.

"Isn't that what I just said?" Gil questioned, turning pink again.

"Just checking," Matthew replied before throwing all caution and pride to the wind and leaning in to kiss her.

Her lips were _horribly_ chapped. It was the first thing he couldn't help noticing. He forgot about that quickly enough when Gil started to kiss him back. A bubble of nervous happiness welled up in his chest, displacing the dead, leaden weight of disappointment and Matthew knew he was smiling even as he kissed Gil again. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders and curled in his hair. His own hovered awkwardly before they settled on her waist. Things felt awesome until Matthew suddenly heard a snicker. His blood ran cold and he drew back, almost choking on air when he saw Alfred lounging in the doorway.

"That was the _worst_ love confession I've ever seen," he declared. "I'm disappointed with you, bro."

The nearest object nearest to Matthew (which happened to be a box of tongue depressors) went flying toward Alfred's face, hitting him right between the eyes. His brother shrieked girlishly before fleeing the room. Then Matthew's red face met his palms with a resounding _thwack! _He stayed slumped over for some time before Gil began to pat his back comfortingly.

"No one's ever 'confessed their love' to me before, so you're still number one in my book," Gil said. Matthew still couldn't bring himself to move, too mortified by his idiotic brother. He was going to do something..._awful_ to him later. Matthew wasn't sure what yet. He couldn't really think beyond the thick blanket of embarrassment his brother had just heaped upon his shoulders.

"But I might have to rank you number two at kissing," Gil confessed as she continued to pat his back. He finally raised his head, giving her a look which read, "_Why would you say that?_" even though he was still incapable of speech at this point. Gil merely shrugged.

"I kissed Antonio once years ago, and he's pretty good. But, uh," she trailed off for a moment before finishing, "I think you need to show him up one of these days. On a date, maybe."

"That...sounds nice," Matthew said. It really did. She smiled at him and he smiled back and the sticky sweet moment was broken by a yawn instead of his obnoxious brother.

"Don't fall asleep on me again," Matthew joked. Gil threw a pillow at his face.

* * *

She was discharged from the hospital midway through the next day after she had finished all the paperwork for her son's birth certificate. Matthew ended up carrying the baby, who was dozing in his baby carrier, while a nurse pushed Gil in a wheelchair toward the parking lot.

The first day home with the baby was...odd, for lack of a better word. Matthew felt a little like a third wheel who was getting in the way of the new family. He hovered awkwardly around during the hours that followed their homecoming, which consisted of a draining haze of liberal crying and frequent feedings. Even _he_ felt more tired than he'd been since med school a few hours later and Gil was the one doing all of the work. Freddie had finally settled down to sleep longer than fifteen minutes at a time and Gil celebrated by going for her first real shower while he was still sleeping.

The water had just started running when Freddie began to fuss again. Matthew set down his book awkwardly before crossing the room to the bassinet and kneeling down beside it. One little fist had managed to get free of the swaddling and the baby waved it angrily as he whined.

"Hey, there," Matthew said for lack of anything else to say. He was only an expert on babies until they came out of the womb; he was at a loss of what to do now. Freddie only started fussing louder and Matthew struggled internally between the awkwardness of dealing with Gil's baby or disrupting the first moment of peace she'd had in days. The struggle was short; Matthew soon found himself picking him up and settling down on his couch with the baby in his arms. A quick check showed that his diaper was still clean so he did the only thing he could really do; he rocked the baby gently and tried to make soothing noises, hoping that he was doing this right. The cries abated a little, hopefully long enough so that Gil could finish her shower, and then finally slowed back down to snuffles. After he'd calmed down, the baby looked up at Matthew curiously. He'd stuck his fist in his mouth and sucked it in a classic hunger sign while he engaged in a staring contest with Matthew.

It felt awkward to just be staring at the baby; Matthew struggled for words that might lessen the tension in the air.

"You're hungry, aren't you?" he asked. He only received a slow blink of violet eyes. Could babies make "duh" faces this young? That was disturbing. After a while, the baby seemed to get bored with staring at him, closed his eyes again, and nodded off in Matthew's arms. He felt awkward again with Gil's son sleeping away on him, but tried to settle in so that they were both more comfortable. As the time passed, he reflected that it was kind of nice.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when Gil bounced onto the couch, hair still wet from the shower.

"Is Freddie okay?" she asked. The baby stirred from the bouncing and the noise, making a grumpy face.

"He's fine, but I think he's hungry," Matthew replied before handing her son back to her. She accepted him easily and left to go feed him in the other room but not before planting a kiss on Matthew's mouth.

* * *

By the time the sun was starting to set, Gil and Matthew were both thoroughly exhausted. The decision to go to bed early was quickly made. Sinking down into bed after two nights at the hospital felt like heaven. Matthew had just gotten settled in when his bedroom door creaked open. Gil came in, whistling and carrying Freddie's bassinet.

"What are you doing?" Matthew asked as she set the bassinet down next to his bed.

"Well, not to be ungrateful or anything, but the bed you bought me is super uncomfortable," Gil said by way of explanation as she climbed into his bed. "Also, I don't know what I'm doing with Freddie. If I wake up in the middle of the night and need your help, I won't have to trek all the way here. This will be much more efficient! And you know how we Germans love efficiency."

Her face was turned away from him so Matthew couldn't tell if she was blushing, but he knew for sure _he_ was.

"Okay," he stuttered before exhaustion finally took its toll on the two.

It felt like his eyes had only been closed for a few minutes when he was suddenly woken by shrill crying. Blinking sleepily at his alarm clock, he saw that it had actually been almost ninety minutes as Gil went to pick up her son. Matthew had almost fallen back asleep by the time Freddie finished eating and Gil crawled back under the covers. Sleepily, she cuddled up to Matthew and he instinctively wrapped his arm around her. He was tired but warm and Gil was soft and pliant in his arms. Having her beside him felt wonderful and made him happier than he could remember having been in a long time. The moment felt perfect.

Yeah, he could _definitely_ get used to this. Maybe even for the rest of his life.

* * *

A/N: Aaaaand we're done! And it only took me twenty-one months! Ha...haha. Sorry about that again.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this fic.


End file.
